The Speed Hunter 2: Second Wind
by Bugz-Toon
Summary: Part the Second; Ryozha's back, this time with Leorio and Kurapika. Another ancient mystery, gangwars, hermits, criminal empires, satisfyingly large explosions, and even the Genei Ryodan. Reviews welcome, naturally. Read the first one first, though :p
1. Chapter 1

(Author's Note: Please read the first Speed Hunter story, or things won't make a lot of sense- this is a direct sequel. Also, as for some odd reason this site won't accept asterisks, words/phrases between two dashes -like this- are supposed to be either sound effects or thoughts.)

Leorio let the huge textbook slide shut through his fingers with a dispirited sort of -PTHHFWAP- noise, pushing his ever-present dark glasses back up his nose with his other hand. He switched the desk lamp off, leaving the library lit only by the dim glow of the streetlights shining through the window, and slumped back in his chair, sighing. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and glared at the stack of books. A long moment, then in one quick movement, he stood up, sweeping the books into a bottom drawer he had yanked open with his toe, then spinning on his heel to snag his suit jacket from the back of the chair, kicking the drawer shut by way of finishing the motion. Then he stalked out, frowning.

-_If I don't do something more interesting than staring at pictures of people's pancreas soon, I think I'm gonna lose my mind._- he thought irritably. -_Going straight from the Hunter Exam to the craziness at the York Shin auction to THIS..._- He shrugged to himself, ignoring the fact that the streets he was wandering down led to a rather rough section of Landinium. -_Still... this is something I have to do._-

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a youthful voice commenting "Nice night for a walk, neh? Although you really should be more careful where you wander." Leorio whirled, his switchblade in his hand and his jacket rolled around his other arm as an impromptu shield. There was no-one there. "Not bad," the voice commented. "Guess I didn't need to worry about you after all." Leorio frowned, starting to get angry. "Show yourself!" he demanded, raising his knife into attack position. "Oh, put that away." the boyish voice snapped peevishly. "You're more likely to hurt yourself than me with it, anyways." A brief pause. "And I'm HARDLY hiding. You're just not looking."

Leorio hesitated, lowering the knife a bit and glancing around again... then, reluctantly, looking up. He raised an eyebrow, as, upside-down, a kid... -_Looks to be about twelve or thirteen... maybe fourteen._- Leorio thought with some surprise... returned the skeptical look (only upside-down) as he hung from a streetlamp. "I'm starting to think that Killua was more right than Gon, in this case..." the kid commented.

The premed student did a doubletake, but before he could comment, the kid untwined his feet from his ankles and dropped, grabbing the lamppost with one hand to right himself, then twirling around it once or twice, landing lightly next to Leorio. -_Hrm. Spiky brown hair, kind of a pointy face, short and skinny, but already built like a distance runner... and glowing with Nen_- some part of Leorio's brain informed him, now that the kid was out of the hazy glow of the streetlamp and more clearly visible. His own Ten responded automatically, sheathing him in the protective energies of Nen, and the kid gave him a lopsided half-grin.

"Nah, no worries. I'm not here to hurt you." the kid commented with a one-shouldered shrug. "You're Leorio, right?" "Leorio-san." Leorio corrected automatically, then looked at him. "You've met Gon and Killua?" he asked, then blinked as the kid (who had yet to introduce himself) doubled over laughing. After he had recovered a little, he managed to splutter "Hahaha... ooh... haha... I couldn't BELIEVE it when Gon told me that one... and it's TRUE..! Mate, you're... what, four years older than me, maybe five? Seriously, 'gramps', get over yourself." the kid grinned, straightening back up. Then the grin widened, and he made a florid formal bow, sliding past sarcasm into open mockery. "Ryozha Tenryu, the Speed Hunter, at your service."

The kid, now introduced as Ryozha, straightened up, the grin sliding off his face. "Actually, I'm hoping you'll be at mine, too... I was coming to look for you, because I remember Killua saying that you were studying at the Royal College of Physicians here." he said, then hesitated at the skeptical look on Leorio's face. "Lemme guess. 'How do I know you really know my friends'?" he commented. "Sheesh... where IS the trust these days, I ask you?" he mock-lamented. "M'kay... Gon- 'bout a year younger than me, spiky hair that looks kinda greenish-black, big brown eyes, usually carries a weird fishing pole with him, looking for his dad, WAY too trusting but with some serious wild-child skills to fall back on. And Killua..." he stopped when Leorio waved a hand. "Alright, alright, I believe you. But what do you need me for?" the older hunter asked.

Ryozha grumbled a bit, then fished his Hunter's License out of his back pocket, spinning it around his fingers a couple of times. "These things..." he grumped, waving the card, "are hardly the door-openers that they promised us in that silly orientation." The hunter license vanished with a speed that suggested sleight-of-hand, although Leorio caught a brief flash of Nen that hinted otherwise, and Ryozha continued "I need to get into the artifact rooms of the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities, but they've been stonewalling me for nearly a week... always some different excuse. So..." he trailed off, and looked hopefully at Leorio, abruptly looking his age. "Well... I was hoping, since you've been here longer, you might know someone who could help me."

Leorio looked at the kid oddly, then grinned. "I DO know someone who can help you, in fact." he paused. "Me." Ryozha gave him a flat look. "... you." he said. "Watch and learn, kid; watch and learn." Leorio told him with a smirk.

Less than ten minutes later, the two of them were standing in the back rooms of the Imperial Museum, Leorio preening and Ryozha glaring at the guard's parting words of "Wow… ne'er thought I'd be meetin' a Hunter, much less two o' 'em on the same night… and so YOUNG, too!"

After he was safely out of earshot, Ryozha looked sidelong at Leorio. "Gotta admit, I'm impressed." he commented. "You don't look like much, but you got us inside in less than five minutes." Leorio frowned at him for a second, then shrugged and grinned. "So, what now, kid? If your head's half as smart as your mouth, we should be alright." "Oh, ha-bloody-ha." Ryozha snarked back at him, but there was a spark of mischief in his eyes and a faint grin hovering around the corner of his mouth.

Ryozha considered his newfound companion for a moment, then gave a one-shouldered shrug. "… wellp, Gon trusts you… even Killua said you're useful to have around sometimes, which is high praise, coming from him. He told ME… after helping me finish my OWN hunt… that I 'wasn't entirely useless.' So that's a pretty good recommendation, I guess." He shifted from one foot to another, then, in a blurred flicker, yanked one of the dusty crates out from its cubbyhole and perched on it. Leorio started violently, his eyebrows climbing, and started to say something, but Ryozha waved him off. "Just my hatsu, don't worry about it… at least not right now, if you want to hear what I'm doing here."

Leorio grumbled a bit, but subsided. Ryozha sat back a little, then frowned… "Ergh, where to start." He rubbed the back of his neck and fiddled with his ever-present headphones. After a moment, he sighed. "Part of the problem is I don't really understand all the stuff that's going on myself. Short form is, I've been hired to find something called the "Codex Obscurata"… or some thingS, more to the point... supposed to be a massive ancient library of some sort. Massive trove of ancient 'wisdom' and knowledge, yada yada yada… pretty much the usual sort of thing."

Ryozha shifted a bit on his makeshift 'seat', drawing up his legs and hugging his knees to his chest. "Only problem is, there's some weird crap happening in the background. I got the commission off the 'net- nothing too strange about that- but when I checked back to see if I could figure out a little about my would-be employer… nada. Not a trace- the e-mail account was a dummy, only thing that had ever been sent from it was the request and then the confirmation- ditto the bank account that the money had been wired from; it had been created that day, and then never used again. I went to the Hunter website after that." He hugged his knees a little tighter. "That's when I found out I wasn't the only one looking for the Codex Obscurata."

--

In another part of Landinium, a mismatched pair lurked in an alleyway, watching the busy streets impassively. After a while, the smaller of the two turned to his larger companion. "So why WE the ones ending up doing this?" he demanded. Sharp eyes glared out from under a ragged fringe of dark, almost greenish hair, the rest of his face hidden by a scarf patterned with a skull design over where his mouth would be. Despite being almost doll-like next to his hulking companion, his voice was sharp and impatient. The larger of the pair glanced down at him, nearly eight feet tall and so broad at the shoulders that he looked vaguely square, and sighed, a brief shake of his scarred head making incredibly long earlobes tipped with metal and rounded jewels flap for a moment.

"This was YOUR idea, Feitan." the Frankenstein-ish apparition reminded the Genei Ryodan's diminutive interim leader. "What, Franklin?!" the little bandit now identified as Feitan glared up at his huge companion. Franklin sighed again. "We found that Nen-remover on Greed Island. You decided he looked like an idiot, and when you beat that ant-queen-thing and became our deputy leader until we get Kuroro back, you told Shalnark to find another way, in case he WAS an idiot. Then you decided that this Codex Obscurata was our best bet and hauled me out to Landinium, since that's where all the clues pointed to." "Was a stupid plan." Feitan grumbled. "But we here anyways. Who we kill to get information we need?"

--

Ryozha shook his head uneasily. "I wasn't even able to get a hint as to who the others looking for the Codex were… or even whether or not there were was one person, a group, or even several groups." Leorio shrugged. "It's probably not important." he said casually. "Long as you're ahead, it shouldn't matter." Ryozha grinned lopsidedly at him. "Me being ahead isn't usually an issue." he murmured a little cryptically. "Anyways, we should get outta this storeroom before any of the other guards wander in here. What I need is probably on private display in one of the study rooms around here."

The two split up, and Ryozha searched at speed, whipping from one room to the next at speeds that would be considered excessive by just about any standard. Then he ran into a room full of ancient weapons… and was driven to his knees by a crippling wave of nausea. He crawled to his feet, staggering, and barely managed to contain a fit of dry retching. His head pounding, he stifled his first impulse (to run as far away as he could, as fast as he could… which was very), and managed to clear his head enough to identify the source of the feeling- hostile, basically undirected Nen of immense power… and possessed of a user that did NOT like him. Opening his Shouko wider, he slid into Ken, the golden glow around him intensifying and hardening as Nen poured out of him.

_-Phew…_- he thought weakly. Tracing the source of the Nen waves wasn't hard… they were radiating like miniature explosions of anger from… -_A mace..?_- he wondered. He looked a little closer, and blanched as memory washed over him… memory all but blotted out under a red haze of berserk fury.

A tiny cell… Gon, battered and near death under the questioning of a madman… Killua and himself, chained to a wall. Nen swirling around the room… gathering… chains shattering… and a fearsome Morningstar running and melting like hot wax under the kinetic fires of his hatsu. He trembled uncontrollably, terror warring with rage pinning him to the spot like a deer in headlights. With a growl, he swung his arm blindly, a Mach two swat spinning the mace away to embed it two feet deep in the wall. With the thing sunk to the 'hilt'... if Ryozha had looked closer, he would have seen that the 'mace' was actually an armbone sunk partway into the head of what used to be a morningstar, forming a fearsome-looking weapon... in the wall, the emanations of nen diminished somewhat, enough that he could think (and move) again. The boy shuddered, stepping away after a cursory glance told him what he sought wasn't here either.

--

Jack 'Cutter' Graves started to breathe again. Hidden in the shadows of the Ancient Weapons' Study Room, the petty thief had nearly had a heart attack when the boy appeared, apparently out of nowhere, in the doorway, then stalked forwards towards him. He had nearly passed out when the boy suddenly… twitched… and there was a thunderous bang and a cloud of powdered stone as one of the weapons was embedded in the wall without any apparent intervening movement. Then the boy was gone again.

Swearing at the kid, whoever he was, and wishing he had some way to pay him back for what felt like a near-fatal shock to his system, Cutter drifted over to the weapon, drawn oddly to it by what felt like little more than simple curiousity. He poked it briefly, and felt a tingle. Grabbing it, he gave an experimental tug, and found it slid out of the stone wall quite easily- a shocking display of strength that was orders of magnitude beyond anything he normally should have been able to muster, but somehow, now, seemed… right. He shrugged and shouldered the silvery weapon. It was as good a piece as any, and it wasn't likely he'd be able to get into one of the rooms with more valuable gear with that bloody kid charging around. Grumbling silently to himself about the brat that had ruined his haul that night, Cutter slid out the door and towards an exit he knew to be unguarded.

--

Ryozha was so badly shaken by his encounter with the malevolent Nen that he nearly missed the object of his search- the document archives. Jogging back to the door he had flicked open and then left after a quick glance in, he slid it open and shifted noiselessly through the opening. A quick glance around revealed the room to be empty, and he rang Leorio's phone, letting it ring twice before snapping his phone shut, the pre-arranged signal that he had found what he was looking for. A few fast button-presses, and his GPS coordinates were loaded across, letting the older Hunter home in on him with ease.

Ryozha was briefly thankful that the building was very nearly empty when Leorio simply strolled down the hallway, booted the door open, then banged it shut. "So, what've you got?" he asked cheerfully. Ryozha gave him a look, then gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Not a lot, at this point. But if the Imperial Museum has anything related to what I need, this is where it is." He waved a hand vaguely. "If you want to help me look, I'm looking for info on the Codex Obscurata." Leorio nodded. This had potential to be… interesting. He grinned, and flipped open a filing cabinet. The grin faded abruptly when the filing cabinet failed to open and instead nearly tipped over on top of him. He flailed at it for a moment, managing to right it once again, choking in the cloud of dust he had just raised. Ryozha, who had riffled through three exhibits in the time it had taken Leorio to nearly squash himself, glanced back. The older Hunter irritably blew off the pile of dust that had settled onto the bridge of his nose and glared at Ryozha, daring him to say anything.

The Speed Hunter shook his head. "… yeah, reeeeeally starting to think Killua was more right." Another shrug. "Then again, you found a locked filing cabinet, which might be useful." Pushing past Leorio for a moment, he lay his hand, palm flat, against the top drawer. Then he jiggled it a bit and concentrated. Taking the 'jiggle' momentum, he shifted it into the lock mechanism and twisted, poking and prodding until there was a sharp -CLICK-. Then, sweating, he repeated it with the other two drawers. Once he'd finished, he sank back, sprawling full length on the floor. "Sorry." he gasped. "Thatkindofdelicateworkisdraining. I'llbeokayinalittlewhile… checkforstuff'bouttheCodex... please?" Leorio looked at him for a moment, then bent down and checked his pulse. The premed student's eyes went wide as Ryozha's pulse hammered under his fingers so fast that it felt as if his veins were vibrating. Ryozha jerked his hand away and glared weakly at him. "Partofmyhatsu,leaveitalone,pleaselook?" he spat out, the words jumbling together. The older hunter looked at him dubiously for a moment, then shrugged and turned to the file cabinet, keeping half an eye on his young companion.

Leorio riffled through the files quickly, finding little, as the files were all labeled in an obscure near-code series of abbreviations. He sorted through more carefully, all the while keeping a sharp eye on Ryozha, who was flat on his back, gasping like a fish out of water. The Speed Hunter sat up, wincing a little, as Leorio turned to him with a handful of files. "You sure you're okay?" he asked cautiously, giving Ryozha another look. Ryozha nodded. "It'snotusually a bigdeal…Ijust have troublecontrollingmy speed sometimes if I workittoohard." He paused, thumping himself over the earhole in an apparent attempt to clear his head. "AlthoughI'vegot to say that doing fineworklike that is badly drainingstill…" He hopped to his feet in a move so fast that it wasn't even blurred… just, one instant he was sitting on the ground with his arms around his knees, the next he was standing up and reaching for the folders Leorio had.

He took the folders, snagging them out of Leorio's hands so fast that the premed student nearly got friction burns. A brief, blurred riffle of the pages, and he nodded. "Whaffu ga?" Leorio demanded, sucking his half-scorched fingers. Ryozha had already riffled back and forth through the folios five times before the sentence had finished, and he shrugged helplessly. "I'm really not sure- the folders you snagged have the right titles, but they're all in some ancient language… or multiple ancient languages, dunno… and I can't make heads of tails of it." He thought for a moment, then pulled out a digital camera. There was a flash of peach-coloured Nen around it as he started snapping pictures of each page as fast as he could flip them over… which was VERY.

Five minutes later, he had digital copies of everything Leorio had been able to find regarding the Codex Obscurata. Then he vanished. Leorio blinked, just standing there for a moment. Then Ryozha reappeared, rubbing the back of his neck and looking embarrassed. "Er… sorry about that. I've been running solo for the last few months, ever since Gon, Killua and I tracked down the Grand Treasure of the Ophirate. So… uh, I tend to forget that most people can't really keep up when I do that." He paused. "Uh… or even really see me, for that matter." Leorio held up a hand. "Let's get out of here first… and then you're GOING to explain that."

They left via the same door they came in. "Leaving already?" the guard questioned. "Most folk spend the better part of a month just figuring out the filing system. You find what you were looking for?" Ryozha just nodded. "Remarkable." The guard commented. "'Remarkable' tends to happen when Hunters are around." Leorio commented offhandedly. "Kind of goes with the job." Then he and Ryozha ambled contentedly off into the night. Once they had rounded a corner, Leorio… well, he didn't relax, exactly, but he seemed to shift gears a little, going from the affable not-quite-loser that had charmed his way past the guard to a much more focused persona. He gave Ryozha a serious look. "Alright, now it's time for you to explain. Do you even know what that 'hatsu' of yours is doing to your body?" he demanded, continuing to walk. Even a city as safe as Landinium still had its problems, and standing around after dark could attract all the wrong kinds of attention.

Ryozha kept pace, concentrating hard to keep himself at a more normal speed. "S'called Superspeed, Leorio. Not that tough a concept." Leorio gave him a dirty look, and Ryozha shrugged. "I don't really like explaining my hatsu, especially not wandering around an unfamiliar town." Leorio didn't comment, just kept looking at him. Eventually, Ryozha tossed his hands in the air. "Fine. Stop by my hotel room, and I'll see if I can explain things to your satisfaction." he grumbled. "And while we're walking, do you know anyone who can translate ancient languages? At a guess, these documents are in at least three different languages, and I don't know any of them." The younger hunter was frowning at the display of his digital camera, which was flickering fast enough to look vaguely seizure-inducing. "That's probably not very good for you, y'know." Leorio commented offhandedly. "Shush." was the irritable response.

A short walk brought them to a small, cheap hotel, and Leorio raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said that you had found some huge treasure with Gon and Killua." "The Grand Treasure of the Ophirate, yeah." Ryozha responded. "So?" "So why… this?" Leorio questioned, gesturing vaguely at the sad little hotel. "It's cheap, and near where I wanted to be. S'not like I'm planning on setting up permanent residence or anything." Ryozha told him. "Anyways… my hatsu. It doesn't actually put that much strain on my body… normally, anyways… because I'm using my Nen to move myself, rather than my muscles." he paused. "Er, sorta." The boy cast around for a way to explain things. Eventually he gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I'm actually Manipulation type; my specific hatsu lets me mess with kinetic energy." A brief twitch and his door was unlocked, far faster than Leorio's eye could follow. Ryozha caught the look- about halfway between amazement and exasperation- on Leorio's face, and dragged his hand over his own face. "Ergh, sorry… when I'm concentrating hard on something else, my control isn't very good." He shoved the door open and went inside, not bothering to hold it open for Leorio.

Perching on the edge of the sagging little bed as Leorio leaned against the wall, watching him. "Okay, one last try- my Nen lets me mess with kinetic energy; I can amplify it to go faster, dampen it to go slower, and redirect it. All that means that my speed isn't putting any more strain on my body than normal running would. And I've kept in training for that." -_My Nen ALSO lets me store and release kinetic energy for whenever I need it, but I think I'll keep that to myself for now, Gon's friend or not._- he added silently to himself. Leorio just nodded. "So… now that you've got all that, what are you going to…" he started, before being cut off by an explosion outside.

Leorio lunged for the window, moving at an impressive clip. The Speed Hunter had (naturally) beaten him there- Ryozha had been at the window before the echo got there. On the street in front of the cheap hotel, a car was upside down and burning. "That's actually not a bad trick, you know." Ryozha commented offhandedly. "Assuming that was done with a standard bullet and not an RPG or something, it's a lot harder than the movies make it look to get a car's gas tank to blow up." Leorio gave him an odd look, but only muttered "And you complain about ME wandering in a bad section of town…" while pulling out his heavy beetle-shaped celphone. He flipped it open and hit a few keys, tuning in to the police band with the shortwave function. A brief crackle, and then the dispatcher's voice came through. "Elements of the Devil Hooligans and the Nostrad Family are clashing on One Hundred and Eighty-First Street, in the Seven Hundreds block… automatic weapons fire has been reported…" crackled from the small speaker before Leorio cut it off, startled. "Nostrad Family?" he repeated. "I didn't know they had any dealings here… wonder what's going on?"

Ryozha was back on the bed, crosslegged with his laptop on his lap, pounding away as he brought up the Hunters' Website. He glanced up at Leorio's comment. "You know the Nostrad clan?" he asked, sounding almost as startled as Leorio had. "Aren't they a pretty big Mafia family?" Leorio shook his head. "Not exactly- they've got some power, but they're still small- they rose fast, but Kurapika never really told me what was behind it, although I'd be willing to bet that he knows." Ryozha tilted his head, birdlike, and gave Leorio a curious look. "Ah… right." Leorio added, turning away from the window. "Kurapika is a friend of mine… and Gon's, for that matter- we took the Hunter Exam together. Kurapika works for the Nostrad family now as a bodyguard… has something to do with a longstanding hunt of his." he finished, a little evasively. Ryozha just nodded.

Then he hopped up from his research. "Alright… nothing much on the Hunter Site about the Devil Hooligans- they seem to be a small-time street gang, mostly, without any real interests beyond football, drinking, and defending their 'turf'- they don't even seem to have any drug connections. But the Nostrads are here on 'official' business- a lot of body smugglers pass through here, and they're looking for a cut of that action." Leorio shuddered discreetly, but declined comment… and then noticed that Ryozha was gone. The missing Hunter poked his head back around the doorframe, inquiring testily "Coming? Three of the Nostrad goons and one of the Devil Hooligans have active bounties- that's all I wanted to check- we can't really leave them shooting up the neighbourhood anyhow." "Uh… right." Leorio riposted, following him out the door.

The two paused in the dimly let stairwell of one of the basement entrances of the hotel. "The Nostrad have taken up positions in the alley across the way- I think they're going to use the second story of that pub to take the high ground and pin the Hooligans down." Leorio started. Ryozha nodded. "You take the Hooligans, I'll get the Goombas." "Wait, shouldn't we…" Leorio started, holding up a hand, but Ryozha was already gone. "plan." He finished, dropping his hand to his side. He shrugged irritably, pulled out his switchblade and flipped it open. "Oh well. Here goes."

Leorio waded into the battle, a shadow in a mediocre suit. The Hooligans were brawlers, mostly- armed with improvised weapons, big, and strong, but with little technique. Undeniably fighters, though… but still no match for a Nen-empowered licensed Hunter, even one without much training, like Leorio. A flying kick rolled into a sweep, then a quick toe-kick to the temple, and two Devil Hooligans were down… quickly followed by a third as a shallow slash disarmed one of his cricket bat, followed by a quick rabbit punch to the breadbasket laying him out, while the fourth was kicked in the head at the same time.

A hard shove rocked a car sideways, skidding a few feet and catapulting the three Hooligans using it as cover into the wall behind them, stunning them, then Leorio hopped behind the car himself as rifle fire chewed up the ashphalt near him. Then he flinched and leapt clear, running hard as the bullets punched cleanly through the vehicle. He risked a glance around as he sprinted.

The Devil Hooligans were winning.

The Nostrad Mafiosi had nearly twice as many men, advanced, maybe military weaponry, the high ground, snipers, and, by the looks of things, the advantage of surprise.

The Devil Hooligans were winning.

The Devil Hooligans had improvised weapons, almost no firearms, and no combat training.

And they were winning.

Black-suited Mafiosi littered the ground, outnumbering the Devil Hooligan casualties by nearly three to one. Leorio managed to get behind a heavy stone planter, chips flying off as frantic fire chewed at the front of it. -_This doesn't make any sense._- the premed student thought grimly. He lay still behind the planter, and the fire (at least in his direction) slowly tapered off. -_It just doesn't work this way. Half-drunken thugs pinned under a crossfire from above by superiour weaponry don't make comebacks. Unless…_- he paused, then scrabbled for his phone… and then paused. -_There's something else at work here. And I have no way of warning the kid... he never gave me his number. He's in TROUBLE._-

Ryozha, meanwhile, was in his element. Heavily armed though they might be, the Nostrad goons had little chance against someone… even a fourteen-year-old someone… who was moving faster than their bullets. A blurred whisper was all that anyone ever saw of him.

Until he ran into an almost-solid wall of enraged Nen.

(Author's note again... Ain't I a stinker? Updates will hopefully follow soon-ish, although I don't have any set schedule for this)


	2. Chapter 2

Ryozha hung in midair, twitching and trying to scream as Nen shaped into raw FORCE simply held him aloft in an agonizing grip. One of the surviving Nostrad lackeys managed to overcome his shock long enough to point his gun at the boy, but there was a hiss of "MINE.", more felt than heard, and a tendril of force-Nen reached out and swatted the Mafiosi out the window, to plummet screaming to the concrete, four stories below. Then an indistinct figure sauntered into the room, blurred beneath a heavy carpet of Nen.

He(?) smashed the skull of one of the still-frozen Mafiosi with a casual-looking backhand, a blast of Nen launching out of the other hand to crush the last goomba against a wall, leaving a smear of blood trailing down the wall from the spiderweb of cracks at the point of impact. Ryozha had been shoved out into the room by the oncoming wall of Nen coruscating around the… thing.

But he had been lucky. The thing's attention had wavered for just an instant when it smashed the goon. And it was CLUMSY. Powerful beyond anything Ryozha had ever sensed, but it was like watching a toddler the size of a barn. Anything in its path got smashed, but there wasn't exactly a whole lot of fine motor control. Power surged with the strike, and Ryozha was spat out of the web of force like a pea from a kid's mouth when his mother wasn't looking.

The Speed Hunter bounced off the far wall like a rubber ball and hit the ground running. Being who he was, his first step was in the room… the second was ten feet across the room, turning sharply out the door. The third was only four feet past that… and the fourth was two hundred feet down the hall. Then he simply hurled himself through the window at the end of the hall in a shower of broken glass.

Leorio was startled to see a streak of golden Nen weaving erratically down the street, sonic booms in time with drunken lurches as it blurred unevenly closer. One last desperate burst of speed, and Ryozha crumpled at his feet. "Hurts…" the boy managed. Behind him, the entire face of the building distintegrated with a roar. Leorio stared for a second, then gathered up the younger Hunter and ran, his long legs eating up the distance as… something… hopped out of the building, dropping four stories with magnificent unconcern and landing with a heavy crunch, walking out of the small crater as if it had just stepped off a curb.

The Premed Hunter glanced back. There was something odd about the way the… something… that was chasing them was moving, visible even through the wildfire of Nen that surrounded it. It didn't seem to want to chase them, moving almost as though something in its hand was dragging it forward. But it WAS chasing them, and with an uncanny, deceptive speed. Ryozha moved in his arms, and Leorio glanced down. "Can you make me go faster with your hatsu?" he asked shortly. Ryozha shook his head weakly. "C'd… m'be… if I was… in b'tter shape… ri' now, tho', prolly… tear you apart…" he mumbled. "Right. So not an option, then." Leorio commented with a wry twist of his mouth. He put his head down and ran harder.

"What did you find in there, anyways, Godzilla?" he demanded. Ryozha smirked faintly, stirring slightly. "Dunno. Big." Leorio gave him a look, nearly running into a telephone pole. "… y'think?" he riposted eventually. Ryozha grinned at him. "Feeling… a bit better. Should be able… to run… soon." By this point, he was alternately vibrating, then suddenly dragging like he weighed half a tonne. Leorio just gritted his teeth and ran. Cars were erupting from the street behind him as if he were trying to outrun a slow-moving shockwave of some unthinkable bomb, building faces were crumbling… then Ryozha slid on his headphones. Sheryl Crow's voice belting out "Real Gone" could be heard for a second, spiraling up in the the ultrasonic, and the kid slid out of Leorio's arms. The world jerked sideways, and, abruptly, they were somewhere else.

"Whew." Ryozha gasped, hunching over with his hands on his knees. "Can't do that… too often. Did we… lose… it?" Leorio glanced around. They seemed to be in some kind of warehouse district near the river, miles away from where the monster was smashing around. He shrugged. "Looks like it, kid. What did you…" he paused. Behind them lay a swathe of destruction- far less than what the whatever that had been chasing them was doing, but still looking like the results of a really nasty windstorm. "Uh…" he commented, pointing at it. Ryozha didn't even look up, just shaking his head. "S'all good. I jetted us over a block, then back the opposite way from the direction you had been running. Any smash-iness…" then he did glance back. "… oy. It's been a LONG time since my control slipped that bad just from running. Guess that grab messed me up worse than I thought."

The Speed Hunter sat on the curb, flopping back a bit. "Anyways, any smash-iness from my running is covered up for nearly two miles by that thing's destruction trail." Leorio nodded, slowly. -_Just how fast IS this kid?_- he wondered briefly. As Ryozha slid his headphones off, Leorio's phone rang, and he blinked. While the kid watched him curiously, Leorio stuck the clunky-looking beetle up to his ear and barked "Y'ello!"

Ryozha blinked a little, as Leorio changed yet again. A layer of reserve that the Speed Hunter hadn't even been aware of slid away, and Leorio smiled, very faintly. "Kurapika." he said. Then he blinked. "You're coming here..? Ah, of course, the Nostrad thing. Yeah, they were having a firefight with some idiots… not sure, Demon Rugby Fans? No, wait, Devil Hooligans… I was there for a meeting… just some Hunter stuff, taking a break from studying… no, wasn't planning on getting myself killed… yeah, we saw it… Nenzilla, yeesh. Biggest concentration of Nen in one spot I've ever seen, even the Spiders couldn't compete with it… alright, I'll see you there." He spun the phone around his hand, snapping it off, then tossed it into his inside pocket. Ryozha looked at him oddly, and Leorio grinned. "C'mon, kid. Got some friends coming." Then he looked thoughtful. "And the one might even be able to help you with your ancient language problem."

Two hours later found them at Kingcliffe International Airport, waiting for an airship to come in, and Leorio was discovering exactly how hyper his new companion was. Eventually, he snagged the kid and sat him down, sticking his headphones on his head and spinning the control he'd seen Ryozha use to accelerate himself… in the opposite direction. The Speed Hunter blurred oddly for a moment, then shut his eyes, very slowly. After about ten minutes, the blink finished, and Ryozha started to reach, very, very slowly, for the 'speed control' knob. An hour and a half later, his hand reached it, beginning to twist. Twenty minutes after that, he was moving at more or less normal speed and glaring at Leorio. "DON'T do that again." he snapped with a flat look.

Leorio shrugged and looked sheepish, but not especially repentant. "Sorry. It was that or go insane." he said with a faint smile. Ryozha grumbled, but took the reproof in stride. Then his ears perked up, and he glanced at the board displaying arrivals and departures. "It's here." he said shortly, blurring off down the concourse. Leorio followed at a more measured pace, grinning to himself. -_Mercurial, much?_- he thought with some amusement.

Leorio arrived at the gate fairly quickly, to a look that said, plain as words, 'what TOOK you so long?!', from Ryozha. Leorio gave the kid a quick smirk and turned to scanning the debarking passengers. Ryozha joined him, then realized he hadn't a clue who they were looking for, and slumped against a pillar, idly listening to music. The line trickled slowly to a halt as Ryozha got increasingly restless... Leorio pretended not to notice that the kid had vanished at least twice, returning with snacks once and a printout of some kind the second time... and then the Speed Hunter's head jerked up as his player made an odd sort of noise, and skipped tracks, abruptly belting out Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady" as the final two passengers stepped off.

Ryozha frankly stared. One was... well, short, bald on top with long sides, and looked a bit like a kind-hearted gnome... well, mostly. As soon as the song kicked in, they'd stopped dead, looked at Ryozha, followed his gaze, and started to giggle. The... person... with them was... well, 'blonde' was a good spot to start, although Ryozha really wasn't sure where to go from there. Not-quite-shoulder-length-hair, a long earring, and a... well, the only word to describe their face was 'pretty'. The rest of them was... -_Sort of a mutated tabard/dress cross, sweats, and ballet slippers? ... bweh?_- Ryozha thought. Whatever he'd been expecting of Leorio's 'mafia buddy', this WASN'T it. A second, closer glance revealed a strange, ring-and-chain-arrangement on the blonde... person's... right hand, carried like a weapon.

Leorio, meanwhile, had started forward with a grin, his hand out. He gravely shook the blonde person's hand, then, reached down for the little pink-haired gnome's hand, and then engulfed her(? Ryozha was pretty sure that the shorter of the two was female, just because of how she walked) in a big hug. "Kurapika! Senritsu! It's been too long." he exclaimed. He started to turn to Ryozha to introduce everybody around when the big plate glass window over the doors shattered.

The world slowed to a crawl and Ryozha spotted the incoming bullet, a weird, shimmering point of non-light in his sixth sense as the kinetic patterns of the world unfolded around him. The blonde... guy(?), Kurapika, already had one of his chains out... the one attached to his fourth finger, with a small steel ball on the end. Ryozha was genuinely impressed- the bullet was supersonic, which meant that Kurapika had reacted fast enough to draw out his entire chain in less than a tenth of a second. Then he frowned. -_I don't think I can snag the bullet properly..._- he thought, giving it a quick once-over. Even at these speeds... faint trails of friction fire licking around his limbs, inertial drag a constant, bizarre falling sensation... the bullet was moving visibly, ablated only slightly by passing through the heavy window.

Making his decision in a heartbeat, the Speed Hunter simply grabbed Kurapika and hurled him aside, the chain snapping out to full length for a second as the blonde was tossed across the lounge, the bullet tagging the steel ball on the end and making it twist. Ryozha was already gone by the time Kurapika was halfway across the room, sprinting hard towards the shooter's position, a laser-straight line of displaced air clearly visible in his mind's eye as he traced the direction with his motion sense.

The sniper was perched on top of one of the control towers. Ryozha covered the open ground in a blurred rush, passing Mach two as he ran, wreathed in scarlet-and-gold Nen. The young Speed Hunter flipped his momentum ninety degrees at the base of the tower, running straight up. He crested the tower in a flying flip kick, his foot moving UP and IN in a move that jerked the gun sideways, yanking the sniper's finger off the trigger and slamming it into his jaw with a -CRACK- so sharp it sounded like another gunshot, lifting him off his feet and starting to tumble him off the tower.

Ryozha finished the flip, catching the slowly (from his perspective, anyways) tumbling rifle by the strap with one hand and snagging the limp gunman with the other. Then he did a quick twist in the air, reorienting himself, and zipped down the tower and across the tarmac, running more easily now.

It had been less than three seconds.

Once Ryozha reentered the terminal, hopping lightly through the shattered window with the limp form of the sniper in tow, he glanced around briefly. Kurapika was upside down against the far wall in the wreckage of two rows of seats, his chain binding his arm to his head and basically mummifying head and arm alike. Judging by the muffled noises he (probably... Ryozha still wasn't too clear on that) was making, he was alive and more than a little irritated. Senritsu was clutching her arm with blood trickling under her fingers, and Leorio was staring around, a little wide-eyed. Then he spotted Senritsu's injury and was at her side before Ryozha could even ask what had happened.

Ryozha dumped the shooter to one side and went to help unwrap Kurapika. He managed a half-turn before the chain simply dematerialized and he nearly jammed his fingers in Kurapika's eyes as he lost his balance. The older boy (Ryozha was pretty sure he was a boy, now... for that matter, he probably wasn't THAT much older than Ryozha himself... a few years, at most) snarled and shoved him off, righting himself and re-grabbing the Speed Hunter in the same motion.

-_Huh. He's wearing contacts. Wonder why?_- flitted irrelevantly across Ryozha's mind as Kurapika got in his face. "You're as careless as you are fast, brat. My dowsing chain HAD that bullet, and Senritsu wouldn't have gotten hit." Ryozha pulled back, but was jerked up short. -_He's STRONG..._- he thought briefly, giving up on pulling loose and just glared back, then smirked faintly, glancing over at where the bullet had hit... the faux-marble tiling was smashed into a crater, the bullet penetrating close on to seven inches into the concrete below before stopping.

"And you've tested it, have you? Against military-grade sniper ordinance? Armour piercing rounds coming in at better than Mach 3?" he snapped back. "I'm sure it's stopped handgun bullets- you would have gotten it in the way easy, you're FAST... But if you were wrong... that shot would have gone straight through you and... Senritsu, her name was?.. as well. I'm sure you're all that, but it's not going to do a lot for you when your guts are painting the wall behind you." Ryozha growled. He didn't appreciate being grabbed like this, and was very near to doing his very best to put Kurapika through the wall.

Thankfully, Kurapika dropped him with a snarl and turned towards his friends. Ryozha trailed after him. The Speed Hunter looked at Leorio and opened his mouth to ask how Senritsu was, but Kurapika overrode him, demanding "Is she..?" "She's fine." Leorio responded. "The shot just grazed her, and she's tougher than she looks." Senritsu chuckled and spoke for the first time. "I really am. You should know that by now, Kurapika." her voice was gentle, but there was a bit of reproof in it.

Kurapika, briefly satisfied that Senritsu wasn't about to expire on the spot, turned to the gunner that Ryozha had dumped on the floor. A cursory examination, and Kurapika all-but-spat "One of Zenji's men. That fat pig has never forgiven me for holding a knife to his throat when he threatened Light Nostrad. He must have known that we'd be called in, and set this as a trap." Kurapika waved Leorio and Senritsu forwards. "Come on. I don't feel like answering a lot of questions right now; let's just get out of here."

Kurapika, Leorio, and Senritsu headed out the front, with Ryozha trailing after, mumbling about being ostracized. –_I suppose I shouldn't be surprised,_- the Speed Hunter thought, -_but it still kind of sucks. Leorio WAS helping ME, at least until his lordship decided to haul him off on his little crusade._- Then he frowned. -_Of course, I'm not sure I'd WANT his help if he was the type to just ditch old friends because something more interesting had come up._- A one-shouldered shrug, and he decided to put himself forward a bit, even if Kurapika didn't seem to WANT any outside help.

"Uhm…" he started, stepping out in front of the group. Kurapika gave him a frosty look. Thus encouraged, Ryozha swallowed hard and offered "If you want, I've got a room in a cheap little hotel right across the street from where that… whatever it was… attacked the Nostrad goons. Since I don't have any connection with you, it might help throw off the Zenji clan clowns, so that you're not dodging sniper bullets every time you turn around."

Kurapika hesitated, but nodded after a sharing a brief glance with Senritsu. "It's a good enough plan for now." he said curtly. "Lead the way." Ryozha offered him a lopsided half-grin and set off at a gentle jog, moving juuuuuust fast enough that the others would have to really stretch to keep up with him, while some small voice at the back of his mind chided him for being petty.

The small party moved rapidly through the wee hours of the Landinium morning, even Senritsu moving easily at a forty-mile-per-hour jog. The Dropkick Murphys belted out "Oi Oi Oi" through Ryozha's headphones, and he jiggled back and forth impatiently, edgy and uncertain that he was really welcome. Then the song cut off in mid 'Oi', and Guns N' Roses started blasting "Welcome to the Jungle". -When did I get so much eighties metal on this thing..?- Ryozha wondered briefly as he fell back a bit and snagged Leorio's sleeve. "Here." he said, tossing his room key to the premed student. "Something's happening- lead the way to the hotel, I'll catch up. Not sure what's going on… just a sense." he blurted.

Leorio caught the room key without looking and nodded. -_Probably just as well._- the premed student thought. -_This way I can maybe get Kurapika to calm down a little. He wasn't happy about being chucked across the room like that._- He smirked. -_Even if it WAS pretty funny with him all wrapped up in his own chain._- Aloud, he commented "The kid's splitting for a few- something in the air he wants to check out." as Ryozha disappeared in a blur of speed. Kurapika frowned, but didn't comment, and Senritsu went oddly still, stretching her amazing senses out, 'feeling' for anything untowards as the now-trio continued to race through the night.

Ryozha, meanwhile, was accelerating smoothly away, stretching his legs a little after what, to him, felt like an agonizingly long time of puttering along at pathetic speeds. As he ran, he extended the sixth sense that helped him manipulate kinetic energy by making it 'visible' to him, the swirling dance of air currents suddenly standing out in stark non-colour, patches of heat showing up as faint fuzziness from their increased molecular activity… and… nothing.

Ryozha slowed for a moment, shimmying up a lamppost and perching, staring around. -Something's not right, and it's driving me crazy. I should KNOW this.- he frowned. -_Whatever it is, it's… familiar?_- He glared at the darkened cityscape.

--

Several blocks away, John Graves was holding court with his gang. "A'right, mates. We've got problems. Nobody much buggered with us before, but we've got these out-of-townies in now, and they want to set up shop here." He stood, getting off the wooden box he'd been sitting on, and waved his gruesome mace like a sceptre. "I can take 'em, of course, but the rest of you sorry lot don't have a prayer against those big shiny guns o'theirs. So… we need weaponry." He sat back down on the box, and watched the Devil Hooligans get into an animated discussion over where the best spot to pick up sweet guns was.

He'd been elected 'leader' (i.e. the guy that organized the beer runs) by general acclaim after the terrible firefight earlier that night, and, somewhat to their surprise, had started taking the job somewhat more seriously than expected. However, it was also something of a relief; the Hooligans were dangerous enough in their own way, but no real match for the heavily-armed Nostrad legbreakers.

"Oi, Cutter!" Jackie 'the Rat' eventually piped up. "Word has it that the Turvy Hall Shamleggers were goin' up against the MI#s- got a load of fancy-dan weaponry, the buggers've been using it to claim a stake in the coke trade." The rat-faced little informant sidled closer. "I seen 'em myself, Cutter. Real science-fiction stuff, they had- even some ray guns shootin' lasers." Cutter nodded to him. "Good eye, Rat." He glanced around. "Alright… Great Burke, Huge Jackie, with me. We'll be paying th'Shamleggers a visit, see if we can't talk them around to our way of thinking. If they got some toys from th'Numbers, it might be what we need to get the Mafiosi offa us."

Huge Jackie unfolded himself from the couch, a burly giant of a man. He burped and squashed the beer keg he'd been drinking out of against his forehead, the way a normal bloke would smash a beer tin against his head. Then he tossed it aside, and roared "Le's go, Burke, y'mindless git!" A monstrous shadow detached itself from the general well of them, a man so big he made Jackie look tiny, fully eight feet tall and nearly seven across at the shoulders. John "Cutter" Graves shouldered his mace and strode out between the two of them, looking for all the world like a Pekinese flanked by a pair of St. Bernards.

--

Ryozha, meanwhile, had swarmed up a lamppost and was bouncing from one to the next in a series of long, floating strides, skimming up one street and down another in a trail of thrumming lampposts and wavering light. His player was spitting out The Presidents of the United States of America "Peaches", which he considered was singularly unhelpful, if mildly amusing. Or at least it would have been, if he could focus; the Speed Hunter was finding he could neither pin down the feeling of unease, nor banish it. Unfortunately for him, all that his senses could tell him was that there was… something… hostile, 'somewhere' in the area.

His standard high-speed grid search had turned up little- he hadn't even been able to find the centre of the aura of unease, and his listless, instinct-driven wanderings had been equally unfruitful. Now he was getting frustrated; Ryozha was feeling he'd wasted his time, and he was quite sure that Kurapika would be quick to tell him so.

So it was with a stomach-knotting combination of apprehension and annoyance that the young Hunter approached his own room. -Honestly, if I didn't still need help with this hunt…- he thought irritatedly. He swung the door open, ready for a stream of vituperation, to… nothing. Kurapika, Senritsu, and Leorio weren't there. Ryozha slumped and blew out a sigh.

After a few minutes of searching, the young Hunter found the other three sifting through the wreckage of the building he had been fighting… or at least stomping on… the Nostrad goons. He wondered briefly how Kurapika felt about that, but the blonde chain-wielder didn't seem to care that much. He was shaking his head in aggravation. "Nothing." he snapped. "So much Nen was unleashed here that it's burned into the very stones, and yet it just… fades. Nothing." he repeated. Leorio looked up from where he was crouched and nodded to Ryozha, while Senritsu looked at the boy oddly, apparently puzzled about something.

Ryozha simply shook his head to Leorio. "Sorry, nothing. Whatever it was, it had either moved, was a residual impression, or I was just wrong." he said with a shrug. Kurapika glanced at the younger Hunter. "What did you think you sensed?" Ryozha shook his head in frustration. "I can't figure it out. It was familiar, but…" He shook his head again, then blinked. "Wait, what did you say about Nen burned into the stones?" Kurapika snorted. "Can't you even sense THAT?" he asked, almost contemptuously. Ryozha glared at him, but opened his senses, eyes shining with Gyo.

After a moment, he shrugged. "Okay, so?" he asked. "This is the same stuff that we saw earlier around Nen-zilla…"

A voice from the street cut him off. "Oi, what are you lot doing in here?" the voice demanded. The voice was quickly followed by its owner, an older Landinium street policeman. "This is a restricted area, this is… nasty business, too. You lads can't just go poking around in…" then his voice trailed off as Kurapika flashed his Hunter's license and turned back to what he was doing. The copper's face turned red, and he strode forward to roughly grab Kurapika by the shoulder. "'ere now, lad, I don't care what sort of fancy card you've got to wave about; this is still a police site…" His voice trailed off as he went to tug Kurapika around, and the slightly-built blonde youngster simply didn't move, completely ignoring him.

The policeman pulled back, his face wary. Leorio glanced from his friend to the officer, frowning a little, but Ryozha stepped smoothly in. -_Leorio could probably do this better, but… ergh…_- he thought, a little incoherently, the desire to prove he wasn't an idiot driving the boy forwards. Catching the policeman's arm and giving his best helpless-little-kid look, he said "Sir? Please, sir, We need to be here- big brother..." he gestured at Kurapika... "is searching for clues, so that we can stop this from happening again."

The policeman seemed to soften a little, and Leorio followed Ryozha's lead with impeccable timing, handing his card respectfully to the beat cop. He took a better look at it, and did a double take. "Ah, so you're with that lot. Maybe you can do some good after all..." Ryozha grinned. "Maybe... we ARE pretty good at this kind of thing." The old copper chuckled. "We'll see, lad, we'll..." his voice trailed off as his radio squawked urgently, a storm of static resolving into a dispatchers voice "... at the old Cannery Row! Repeat, there's an intense firefight at the old Cannery Row. Military-grade weaponry being deployed by both sides. All units, respond!"

Ryozha, Leorio, and Senritsu exchanged glances as Kurapika's celphone rang. He opened it, listened for a moment, then... smiled. Ryozha stared at him. It wasn't a nice smile. The policeman had already departed at a brisk trot after a final glance at the four, and Kurapika apparently felt he could speak freely. "According to one of my sources, that firefight is Mafia-related- he thinks he might have seen some of Zenji's men there."

Ryozha shook his head. "I still don't think we should leave them shooting it out- too easy for innocent people to get caught in the crossfire." Kurapika shot the younger Hunter an annoyed glance. "I didn't SAY that, now did I?" he asked peevishly.

--

Some distance away, Huge Jackie and Cutter were trying to cajole Great Burke into moving, but the titanic man was cowering, covering his eyes, and, although it was difficult to see, he seemed to be sucking his thumb as well. Another explosion blasted shrapnel past them, and Huge Jackie took a sharp poke at Cutter. "Look what you've done now, then!" he yelled, prodding his nominal boss again. "We've walked into the middle of a deal going down between the Zenji clan and the Turvy Hill Shamleggers… an' we've soured it, no less! Both sides blamed the other for us being there, and then EVERYBODY started t'shooting!" Cutter gave him a look. After a moment, he answered coolly "Yes, I've noticed. Feel free to shut up about it."

Inwardly, though, he was worrying. The vast, roaring power he had felt destroying that collection of Nostrad goons wasn't coming. -_Is there some kind of trigger? A magic word? What?_- he wondered. -_Or is it something outside of me?_- He waggled the mace, but it remained unresponsive. He was still far, far, far faster and stronger than before, but... -_Eh, just because I'm not feelin' invool-ner-able, doesn't mean I've gotta crawl here._- flickered across his mind, an irritable frown pulling at his mouth. "Right, you two. The Shamleggers might be a pack of freaks and losers, but they're Landinium boys nonetheless. If you see any of the Mafia goons, break 'em. Any Shamleggers give you grief, bop 'em onna bonce, but try to be gentle about it." With those instructions, he strode out into the firefight, smashing down the first dark-suited made man he saw with a single swift blow. -Still got it, looks like.- he thought smugly as his two huge attendants followed him, Huge Jackie all but DRAGGING Great Burke.

--

Up the street a little, Ryozha peered around a corner. The fitful light of small fires and distant tracers flickered across his face, turning his blue-grey eyes an eerie gold, but illuminated little. He pulled back in, not wanting to draw fire. "So... nothing but badguys, right? Just shut 'em down fast and hard?" he asked, tilting his head to one side and looking from Kurapika to Leorio and back. Surprisingly, it was Senritsu that spoke. "Yes, that would be best. If we can avoid being seen as much as possible, though... Nostrad cannot afford a war with Zenji right now." Ryozha nodded, and wound up like a spring, getting ready to blur away, then stopping as a thought hit him.

The Speed Hunter glanced at the other three. "Kurapikachu here can stop bullets; can either of you two do that?" he questioned, pointing to Leorio and Senritsu. The two shook their heads. "It might be a good idea if we stuck in groups of two, then- one who can stop bullets with each of those who can't." the younger Hunter finished, glancing at Kurapika for confirmation. Kurapika just grated "DON'T… call… me… Kurapikachu…", then frowned. "It's not a bad idea." he finally admitted, more than a little grudgingly.

Kurapika thought for a moment, then blinked when a particularly loud explosion shook brick dust out of the wall they were sheltering behind. "It's spreading." he said flatly. "Leorio, with me. Senritsu, stay with the idiot." he snapped, quickly suiting actions to words and ghosting rapidly into the shifting half-light of the wee hours. Leorio followed suit with a half-apologetic glance at Ryozha, and Senritsu moved to follow, then paused when Ryozha didn't come.

"Pompous, arrogant, stuck-up overbearing…" the Speed Hunter muttered. Senritsu raised an eyebrow at him, an odd look in her eyes. "There might be a thing or two about him you don't know…" she suggested gently. Ryozha waved her off. "Of course you'd say that; you're in the mafia, and he's your boss. You don't bad-mouth your boss in the mafia." Senritsu smiled, a little sadly. "Yes, definitely a few things you don't know. But we have work to do." Ryozha shrugged irritably and followed, chafing at the slowness.

The fight was raging through a defunct factory, and had spread to several surrounding buildings- a couple of empty warehouses, and what looked like it had contained the offices for whatever company owned this complex before it fell into disrepair. The thunder of automatic weapons mixed with the deeper, barking roar of high explosives and howl of rocket engines as heavy weaponry was deployed by both sides.

(AUTHOR'S NOTE (again): So, things are getting fun, and I haven't even introduced all the sides yet. If you'd like to see the story faster, but in shorter bits, let me know in the comments- I tend to prefer to put out about five thousand words or thereabouts for each chapter, which can take me a while, as I'm doing this in what I laughably refer to as my 'spare time')


	3. Chapter 3

Ryozha flickered through the raging firefight, a blurred ghost stealing kinetic energy from everything he touched. Mafiosi and gangbangers alike found themselves gaping as bullets tinkled to the floor three feet from gun barrels, fragmentation grenades just kind of fell to bits with a sad little noise instead of going off –BANG-, rockets tumbled lazily out of the air to bounce a couple of times with the 'chonk' of abruptly-frozen metal as even their heat energy got sucked out.

And throughout it all, a haunting melody soared, a delicate flute piece that pierced through the thunder of battle and tore at the heartstrings. More than one hard-bitten goomba found himself lowering his weapon and dabbing at his eyes as he was overwhelmed with emotion.

Ryozha appeared next to Senritsu in a swirl of smoke, the melody of her flute soaring through the abrupt lull in the battle, little noise in their immediate area other than the occasional muffled sob. Senritsu blinked, but her song didn't falter. Curiousity shone in her eyes, though- while before, Ryozha's aura had been pure gold, now it was a roaring fire of red Nen, shot through with the occasional gold streak. Ryozha just shook his head, giving a one-shouldered shrug. "Will this hold them after you stop playing?" he questioned. Senritsu shook her head, and he gave a brief nod. "Alright. I'll start clearing through, then. Watch your back!" And with that, he was gone again, vanishing in a swirl of speed in the space between heartbeats.

Ryozha settled into his stride, zipping through the burning warehouse with little to mark his passing save a few eddies in the smoke. On his player, a familiar pattern of chords slammed out, and he grinned. George Thorogood started to sing "On the day I was born…" -_Well, I may not be 'Bad to the Bone',_- Ryozha thought, -_but against these mooks, I might as well be._-

-beat-

A heavily built Zenji Clan goon, firing a huge assault rifle with wild abandon, sees a boy materialize, apparently out of thin air, in front of him. His gaping jaw is slammed shut by a snap kick that lifts him off his feet.

-beat-

A trio of Shamleggers, standing at bay with their weapons ready (one carrying what appeared to be a shoulder-mounted rapid-fire rocket launcher), open up in unison, filling the room they're in with fire. Unnoticed, a small figure decelerates in their midst. A whirling spin-kick pitches all three onto their faces, ruining their weapons and knocking the lot out.

-beat-

A Zenji-clan goon with an earpiece and a heavy pistol is snapping off shots around a corner and shouting into his radio. He feels his earpiece yanked out, and a young voice sings out "Sorry, but your party has been forcibly disconnected." He whirls just in time to catch the earpiece in the temple at two hundred miles an hour, and slumps, unconscious.

-beat-

One of the Shamleggers, a small man barely able to lift his huge chaingun, much less control it, found his wild spray of death interrupted by his chaingun lurching sideways to slap him into a wall. His eyes rolled back in his head as his head smacked into the plaster with a hollow -BONK-

-beat-

Five Zenji goons heard a brief whistling noise. The rearmost one was clipped under the ear by a ninety-mile-per-hour knee, the next smashed to the ground be a crashing axe-kick, the third caught a passing elbow to the temple, the fourth got a brief view of the tread pattern on Ryozha's sneaker before tripping over his fallen comrade and cracking his skull on the wall, and the final simply got a double-footed stomp to the crown of his head before Ryozha touched the ground again, fifteen feet down the hall.

-beat-

Ryozha reappeared next to Senritsu, who raised an eyebrow to him, still playing. The Speed Hunter just gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Taking care of the ones that were too far away or seemed to be resistant." he commented. Senritsu nodded, but kept playing. Ryozha frowned. "You want me to club 'em while they're helpless? That's no fun!" he complained, then paused. "Kind of lame, too."

Senritsu gave him a look, gauging his seriousness, then shrugged, smiled very faintly, and stopped playing. "Very well, then." she said. "We'll go together." Now it was Ryozha's turn to give HER a look, then he, too, shrugged. "You said that you were tougher than you looked, but that's really not hard..." he paused, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Er, no offense. But how tough ARE you, really?" Senritsu chuckled briefly and told him "Let's go find out."

--

In the second warehouse, Kurapika stood over the half-mangled body of the latest in a sequence of Zenji-Clan goons, idly shaking bullets out of his Dowsing Chain, and glancing back at Leorio. Once again, he was mildly impressed. In a fight, Leorio's habitual, practically subliminal body-language broadcast of 'I'm harmless' was turned off… with a vengeance. Every move was made with the rapid, careful precision of a trained martial artist… and, while his friend might not be a Nen genius, or a superhuman fighter, like some… he was still good. Very, very good.

Leorio took advantage of the pause in battle as well, discarding the big assault rifle he had been bludgeoning the Shamlegger he had taken it away from with, and returned Kurapika's look. He shuddered a little. Kurapika-in-combat tended to be a little… different… from normal Kurapika. Colder. And able to hit harder. Much, much, much harder, better... and faster… stronger… the premed student found himself absently humming a certain Daft Punk song, and stopped with a twist of his mouth.

The two friends strode out shoulder-to-shoulder, then split in the hallway, Kurapika deftly catching a hail of bullets with his chain while Leorio simply gutkicked the startled Shamlegger near the door, a swift chop to the back of the neck disabling him completely while he shanked the second. As the man swore and dropped his gun, Leorio decked him. This taking care of any enemies in his immediate vicinity, he glanced back to see how Kurapika was doing. Of course, there was little point to this; Kurapika was just calmly advancing on the shooters, catching bullets, until he was close enough to hit them. This he did in a complicated flurry of limbs that ended with four bodies unceremoniously dumped on the floor (a the ball at the tip of the dowsing chain downing one, an elbow-to-backhand strike dropping another, what Leorio could have sworn was a nervestrike with Kurapika's TOE dropping the third, and a knee to the chin dropping the last).

Leorio laughed and shook his head. "I'll never know how you manage that without falling over." he commented as Kurapika. The smaller boy laughed and just said "Nen." Leorio gave an aggrieved sigh, and complained "You ALWAYS say that." Kurapika just shrugged, and the two moved onwards.

--

Senritsu absently tapped a gun barrel away with her flute, delivering a solid shot to the knee of the shooter, then an uppercut as the pain brought his face into her range, more interested in watching Ryozha than the rather inept gunmen the Shamleggers had managed to field. Now that the boy had been slowed down out of his usual blurred invisibility by his need to stay near her, his fighting style was clearer. She raised an eyebrow as she thought, flute touching lips for a brief, piercing shriek that completely disoriented the thug sneaking up behind her, then whipping the instrument back over her shoulder to knock him senseless.

Ryozha's fighting style was… odd. Not raw, as she'd first thought, or unskilled, just… strange. He was doing things he shouldn't be able to do, movement all hard angles and jolting lunges that SHOULD have left him violently off-balance and badly vulnerable, yet somehow… didn't. She frowned, tripping a thug who was trying to come up behind her, stepping aside and stabbing pressure points as the thug target tumbled forwards.

Ryozha, meanwhile, was just generally going to town, occasionally kicking it into high gear to intercept any wayward bullets before they could perforate Senritsu (although, in all honesty, she probably was never in THAT much danger). Bouncing around like a animated pinball sequence that was missing a few frames, he was ricocheting off the walls, the floor, even the ceiling and rafters at a few points. He had pulled out the heavy, anik-cored double-jointed staff that he used as his primary weapon and was bludgeoning thugs and made men alike about the head and shoulders as he flipped past overhead, or snarling it around their ankles and bringing them down hard as he skidded underneath them.

As the last goon crumpled to the floor, Ryozha skidded to a stop next to Senritsu. She gave him an odd look. Despite bouncing around like a cricket on a hotplate, he wasn't even breathing hard. He went perfectly still for a moment, and the little flautist just STARED; for that moment, sound wasn't reflecting off him. She couldn't even hear his heartbeat, much to her shock. He came out of it, his sound returning to normal, and returned her stare, looking a bit flustered. "I… uh… I think that's everyone in this building." he told her. Remembering herself, she listened for a moment, and then nodded.

--

Kurapika and Leorio, meanwhile, were having to check the old-fashioned way, but eventually the building was pronounced clear. The two of them were standing and staring silently at the final building, a run-down office building that was getting more run-down by the second as heavy gunfire, rockets, grenades, and some sort of high-pitched thrumming noise that wasn't readily identifiable echoed across the weed-choked pavement they now stood on.

Ryozha jetted silently up, closely followed by Senritsu. He'd been circling her in order to maintain a close guard, much to her discomfiture- thanks to him using his hatsu to dampen any incidental noise from his running (such as the occasional sonic boom…), his heartbeat faded in and out in the most disconcerting manner, and the rhythm changed in a most a-rhythmic fashion as he switched between speed levels. All in all, she'd found it very unnerving… like watching someone turn into a ghost… and back… repeatedly, at more-or-less random intervals.

Kurapika took one look at Senritsu's face, and glared daggers at the young Speed Hunter, recognizing immediately that he was somehow causing Senritsu discomfort, although he, lacking Senritsu's amazing hearing, misinterpreted the cause. Before he could comment, though, Leorio grabbed his arm and spun him around, pointing sharply at one of the windows. "There! Did you SEE that?" the premed Hunter demanded. Kurapika stared, a bit rattled, but had to shake his head. Leorio frowned. "It looked like something from a cheap scifi movie- a death-ray or something." he said.

Kurapika gave him a skeptical look, but shrugged. He'd certainly seen stranger in his time as a pro-Hunter, although he wondered what sort of Hatsu would give that sort of effect. Ryozha had come up closer by that point, and shaken his head also. "Sorry, Leorio- I didn't catch anything either." he said, sounding surprised. With his speed, he would have expected to catch sight of most things, if alerted in time. Kurapika gave him another look, trying to puzzle out his tone. The Kurata simply wasn't sure what to make of Ryozha; the boy was (to his mind) loud, arrogant, careless, insensitive, and not nearly so bright as he seemed to think he was. Yet Leorio- whose judgement he had come to (grudgingly, at first) respect didn't seem to think so, and Senritsu seemed more confused than angry. The scarlet-eyed Hunter frowned irritably- it was a mystery he didn't need distracting him at this point.

His thoughts were interrupted by another of those odd thrumming noises... this one accompanied by a crackling roar as a sizeable chunk of the building face sloughed off, carved away by a dimly-visible beam of light, faint glow torching to brilliant gleam where it touched solid matter.

"Saw it that time." Ryozha commented, a little irrelevantly. The thrum amped up to a whine, and another beam stabbed out, blowing out a window and showering the street with shards of superheated glass. "Something certainly seems to be bothering them." Leorio noted with a frown. Kurapika glanced sharply at him. "We'd best get in there." he said shortly. "Leorio, guard the exit- the police are going to be wanting to know what's happening, and you're best suited to dealing with them. Senritsu, cover my back. Brat, try not to get in the way."

Following Kurapika's rapid-fire orders (more than a little grudgingly, on Ryozha's part), the quartet split up, Leorio finding a convenient overhang to watch for the police, the other three moving cautiously into the building. The entry hallway was a shambles, but seemed to be pretty much deserted. The thrum of the death ray was louder here, but seemed to be coming from upstairs. Then Ryozha twitched sharply as ZZTop's "Sharp Dressed Man" started playing through his headphones. Senritsu looked at him questioningly, but he just shrugged. Kurapika gave them both a sharp look, warning them to stay on task, but then HE jumped as a massive centipede coiled down the stairwell. Fully twenty feet long, it had a human skull for a head, and was hissing like a broken steam pipe. "Oo-Mukade!" Kurapika breathed.

Ryozha was already kicking it in the face before Kurapika could close his mouth, but the boy simply bounced off, banking off two walls and the ceiling to bleed off speed. "It's a Nen-beast." he reported. "I have a... harder time... affecting constructs." he admitted, his eyes downcast for a moment. Then there was no further time for conversation as the monster insect attacked, spraying poison mist as it came.

Kurapika's chains were in hand, his dowsing chain flickering in and out as he probed for weak points in the chitinous armour. Ryozha was dashing about, apparently aimlessly (although careful observation would show that he was using wind-cuts to keep the poison vapour away from the three of them), and Senritsu had her flute to her lips, listening carefully. Then she began to play, an eerie melody that swirled around the ears, seeming to seek a way in. The giant centipede wavered for a moment as the sound found its way to the controller, then collapsed into a long, writhing mound of poisonous insects that retreated into the shadows.

A drawling voice from further up the stairwell commented "Your little vermin can't even handle a little music, Zeechik?" With the comment, a figure swaggered into view. "Sharp Dressed Man" was still playing, and Ryozha had to admit it was appropriate- the guy looked like a high-fashion model. Everything about him just OOZED style- not a hair was out of place, everything was pressed so neatly that it looked like it had been done by a geometry major, and… Ryozha noticed that Senritsu's music had changed. It took him a few beats, but he recognized the song as "I'm too Sexy (for my Shirt)". Combined with the weirdness of the situation, it was too much, and he burst out laughing. Senritsu managed to play a little longer before dissolving into giggles herself.

Meanwhile, the perfectly-coifed stranger was turning… not red with anger, exactly, but a very stylish faint hint of blush coloured his cheeks, until he burst out "I will not be mocked by a child and a little troll. DIE!" On the last word, he made a blurred lunge... and slammed into Kurapika's fist with such force that it probably should have split him in two.

Instead, he simply stopped dead, flicked imaginary dust off where Kurapika's fist had touched him, and smiled. Slowly, and, of course, stylishly. Kurapika didn't bother waiting for it to finish- his fist flickered out so fast that even Ryozha was impressed, then used the kickback from that to add speed to a backwards lunge. His dowsing chain lashed out, once, twice, then wrapped completely around the fashionista's head to smash him into the ceiling, then the floor. As the dust cleared, the chain lashed out one final time, shattering the slowly re-forming Oo-Mukade into its component bugs once more.

Ryozha glanced aside at Senritsu. "He's really rather good, isn't he?" he asked, with a trace of begrudging admiration in his voice. Senritsu just nodded, looking distracted. Then Ryozha froze, staring in disbelief as rubble was shouldered aside and the fashion plate stood, not even mussed. "Oh, that's IT." he growled. Time slowed, and he strode forwards, movement that would be an invisible blur to anyone else. Stomping up to the apparently frozen fashionista, he planted a palm flat on his chest and released a pulse of kinetic energy, nearly twenty tonnes of force concentrated in the space of a handspan. The perfectly-styled fighter abruptly became a perfectly-styled screaming blur, smashing out through the wall and vanishing.

A disheveled-looking man(?) detached from the shadows (probably the aforementioned Zeechik, Ryozha thought), staring after his abruptly-departed comrade. Loose dark-coloured slacks and a shabby trenchcoat obscured his(?) form almost completely, while shaggy hair that was probably dirty-blond hung to his shoulders in the back and bangs that hung to the bridge of his nose hid most of the rest. Bugs swarmed around him(?), and his mouth was twisted in an angry, petulant frown. "Andrej!" he(?) exclaimed. The voice gave away no clues as to gender, a light tenor that could have been either male or female. Ryozha stared from the centipede manipulator to Kurapika and back, obviously a little nonplussed to have two androgenes in the same room.

"You'll PAY for that, scum!" the bug-controller yelled. Then he leapt out the hole that the fashionista (Andrej, apparently) had left in his rather... unplanned... exit. Ryozha raced over, scaling the wall in a vertical run to peer out of the hole, but the odd fighter was already gone- apparently whatever allowed him/her/it to hide in the shadows while directing their monster bugs also applied to running away.

Kurapika waved him down. "Forget him... her... whatever, brat. We need to find the weapons that were firing earlier." Ryozha glared at him, but then shrugged, forced to acknowledge it was probably necessary. Senritsu raised a hand, but he was already gone. When Kurapika looked at her, she dropped her hand and shook her head. "I think we're alone in here. I don't hear anyone else." The blond Kurata raised an eyebrow, but any questions were headed off by a strangled yell.

The two caught up with Ryozha quickly. He was a bit white and shaky-looking, the reason being fairly obvious- a trio of what used to be Shamleggers (insofar as could be told from what was left of their clothes) were... scattered... about the room. The most complete body was in three pieces; the least was little more than a puddle of gore. Kurapika eyed them dispassionately, then shrugged. "There isn't anything we can do for them. Let's get back to Leorio." Ryozha nodded greenly, and Senritsu followed, mute for the moment.

--

Blood slid down the handle of Jack Graves' bone mace, and he grinned, shaking the mace a little and flicking the viscous fluid off before it reached his hand. "Not exactly what I'd planned, but it'll do." he commented. Huge Jackie nodded, struggling under the weight of a massive particle cannon that they'd 'liberated' from the Shamleggers; Great Burke was carrying two, one over each shoulder. "I think we're going to be starting to fortify the hall." 'Cutter' told the other two. "I'm going to find me some steel plating, and maybe some 'contractors'. Those Mafia goons'll be sorry they ever came to my town." Thankfully, his smile was hidden by the dim light of the wee hours. It wasn't pretty.

--

Ryozha tossed and turned restlessly on the crummy little bed in his hotel room, his sleep restless and disturbed. The other three had split off- Leorio returning to his student quarters, Senritsu and Kurapika to a much more upscale hotel in a better part of town. Unheard, his player lit up, the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" pounding out of it, tinny sound belting out of the headphones in the cheap little room.

The Speed Hunter's mind, though, was far away. He found himself on a shifting, formless dreamscape, mist curling and shifting in a wavering cityscape that could be mistaken for the waking city of Landinium if you squinted a little. He glanced around, and was startled to find himself blurring to wherever his gaze happened to fall. Slowing for a moment, a nearly jumped out of his astral skin when a voice roared around him.

"What an interesting little mind you have, child." Ryozha glared around himself, flickering about, trying to find the voice. His seventh sense was informing him that the 'vibrations' were coming from all directions at once, and he finally burst out "Who are you, and where am I?" "Still a child in some respects, though." the voice observed drily. Ryozha sputtered, and there was laughter that shook the unreal cityscape. "I am the Dreamer Under Landinium, 'Speed Hunter'." the voice intoned gravely, the capital letters of the title clicking audibly into place. "As to why... your dreams are filled... consumed... with the Codex Obscurata." Ryozha slumped. "So, let me guess." he grumbled. "You're looking for it too, and this is some kind of elaborate trap to get what I know, or to knock me out of the hunt."

Laughter bellowed again, and the cityscape shattered completely, replaced with the shadowy outlines of catacombs. Ryozha stared around, startled, and zipped through the tunnels as a result, blurring through miles of twisting underground passages. He leapt sideways in shock when the 'world' shifted again, forcibly jerking him back to the cityscape, the leap crossing a thousand virtual miles of endless cityscape in less than a blink.

Silence, for a time, then the voice sounded again, this time from a definite direction- the way Ryozha had come from. "An interesting mind, indeed." the Dreamer said, sounding distinctly nonplussed. "You've penetrated further into my defenses than anyone before, Swiftmind, and almost accidentally." A thoughtful pause, then the voice continued. "No, my interest in the Codex is merely academic- it contains some of the last factual information concerning myself on the planet. If you are the one to find the texts, you must come visit me face-to-face; perhaps, armed with that information, you might even be able to free me from my immortal prison."

With that, Ryozha was released from the dreamscape, sinking deeper into slumber.

Later that morning, he was restless and irritable, dimly-remembered dreams and a too-short sleep troubling his waking mind. He joined Kurapika, Senritsu, and Leorio in a small pub that Leorio had recommended. He reacted to Kurapika's skeptical look with bad grace, but managed to keep from starting a fight, grunting something about sleeping badly. Kurapika apparently accepted that, or at least ignored the younger boy for the moment. "I did some checking." the Kurata announced abruptly. "Zeechik and Andrej are definitely Zenji clan, although there was little information on them beyond that. It shouldn't be a surprise that a larger family than the Nostrads could afford some Nen-talent of their own." "Great. You can browse the Hunter site and explain non-surprises." Ryozha muttered crabbily.

Kurapika glared at him, and Ryozha blinked owlishly. The contacts he had noticed earlier had changed tint subtly, and the Speed Hunter could have sworn there was red around the edges. Then Kurapika visibly restrained himself, and Ryozha rocked forwards at the sudden absence of the titanic Nen-pressure he had been unconsciously fighting. Senritsu and Leorio were both looking from one to the other, a bit wide-eyed. "ANYWAYS." Kurapika went on, "We should probably find out more about what the Zenji are trying here- I don't think last night went according to plan."

Ryozha opened his mouth to object, but Leorio was already nodding, and he subsided irritably. Food arrived, and he concentrated on that, eating hungrily. Eventually, he volunteered "I'll take care of the cyber-front; I don't have any contacts here, except Leorio, really, so I can't help much that way." Kurapika looked about ready to suggest that he wasn't much help in ANY way, but the blond Hunter just nodded instead... after Senritsu jabbed him with her elbow. Ryozha smirked, sensing the movement, but thankfully his mouth was full.

After the group had split again- Senritsu was going to check with the local Nostrad Family lieutenant, and Kurapika and Leorio were going to check the local criminal haunts to see what was happening in the underground, Ryozha plopped down on the ratty little bed he currently called 'his'. His laptop banged open with the familiar flare of the pale peach-coloured Nen it was imbued with, and the boy cracked his knuckles, stretching his fingers. Then he started to type, a stacatto rattle that ramped up into a constant, vibrating whine as his hands blurred, the screen becoming an incomprehensible flicker as pages flicked in and out of view too fast for anyone else to follow.

--

Feitan dropped the mangled, tortured corpse of the Hunter they had caught in the archives of the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities. Idly brushing flayed skin and blood off his short-bladed knife, he shook his head. "Useless and weak." he commented succinctly. "I don't know," Franklin answered, "I think he nearly touched you a couple of times there." Feitan shrugged. "Others been here- records are disturbed." he noted, the pride of a professional thief who left no traces colouring his voice with a bit of scorn. "Also, the guard told us he let some kids in, and this guy told us he had heard there were other Hunters looking for the Codex Obscurata." Franklin added, sounding slightly amused.

Feitan gave his huge companion a dirty look, then shrugged. "This one say only professor who translate this crap is out of country now." he said with a wave of his hand at the folders neatly spread out on top of the file cabinets, out of range of the spray of blood that had coloured nearly half the room. Franklin nodded, his distended ears bobbing, then frowned slightly. Ramming his fist through the door, he grabbed the guard who was passing by outside, looking for the missing man he was supposed to replace, and dragged him straight through the smashed door.

The guard blanched with fear as he saw the pair of corpses in the room- one the Hunter, the other the guard he had been coming to relieve- then gabbled incoherently as Franklin demanded "Do you know the professors who work here?" Feitan took the unresisting man, and did... something... to his fingers that elicited a shriek. Another shriek, and the guard managed to sob "Yes!" "Who's responsible for this section?" Franklin asked. Feitan's hands moved again, and the guard screamed. "Ivo! Professor Ivo!" he managed to gasp. Before Franklin could ask anything else, the guard added "He's out of town! I don't know when he'll be back!" "Records. Where?" Feitan demanded. "The main office! I don't know anything more... oh no... please don't..."

Feitan dropped the corpse- his third in the last hour- and glanced up at Franklin. "Should have brought Shalnark." he grunted. "Too bad." Franklin smirked faintly. "It's still your idea. You're the boss, remember?" Feitan scowled, but feigned indifference. "Maybe torture secretary, if there- will save time." Franklin nodded, and the two headed out of the file room.

--

Three hours later, Ryozha was still banging on his laptop, Bono singing "Stuck in a Moment You can't Get Out Of." out of his headphones. Despite Kurapika's unflattering description of him, Zenji was either surprisingly adept at covering his tracks, or so enormously rich that he could afford to hire someone to do it for him. Three hours had turned up a bare handful of slim leads on Zenji's work in Landinium.

Ryozha growled and sped up, his Nen roaring out in a golden storm as electronics and Nen blurred together, technomagic dancing across the aether. Then luck hit like a bolt of lightning; he stumbled across an underground site that a playful hacker had put up server records on... server records that included internal e-mail transactions of the Zenji clan.

The Speed Hunter growled an oath- Zenji wasn't covering his tracks; his Landinium operation was just so new that there simply hadn't been TIME to build up records- he had started less than a week before Kurapika had arrived. He grabbed out his phone and dialed Leorio's number, quickly relaying what he had learned. Leorio was uncharacteristically curt- apparently he and Kurapika were someplace dangerous.

--

Leorio tucked his phone away, returning the Shamlegger's angry, frightened glare with a bland look as the man dangled by his collar from Leorio's iron grip. The gang had been surprisingly easy to track down, at least for a Hunter- he supposed that the 'Number Men'- the Secret Intelligence Services- were too proud to hire outside help. That or one of those lost the gang had lost last night had been the one keeping their tracks hidden and their cover had crumbled remarkably quickly.

Kurapika was fighting off half a dozen of Shamleggers at once, chains and limbs flashing, while Leorio returned his attention to the punk he was holding- 'Paulie', apparently. "So, Paulie... what happened last night?" Leorio asked conversationally. The thug made a choking noise, and Leorio adjusted his grip slightly. Paulie had slowly been turning an alarming shade of purple, and he gasped and sputtered as Leorio ducked slightly, a big Shamlegger flying past overhead on a nearly flat trajectory.

"I... I don't know, mate." Paulie finally managed. "It was supposed to be a deal." He swung for a moment as another Shamlegger hurtled past and Leorio deftly stepped aside. "Them Mafia goombas were looking to buy some weapons to off some other goombas- it was GOOD money." He managed a shrug, nearly choking himself. "Dunno what blew up." Leorio nodded sagely, and tossed Paulie aside. Kurapika walked up, sheathing his chains up his sleeve. "It was a weapons deal." Leorio told him. "But they don't know what went wrong- Paulie..." he waved a hand at the crumpled heap that was the thug he had thrown "seemed to know the most out of everyone here, and he didn't know much- looks like they lost most of their seniour people to that mess last night- they're still trying to work out bail for the survivours."

Kurapika frowned. "That doesn't give us a lot to work with- even if we get permission to interrogate the ones in the cells, the Intel types won't let us dig up much- the Shamleggers embarassed them, and they'll be out for blood." Leorio made a face. "Yeah. The spooks around here aren't the forgiving types. We're going to have to nose around a bit more- if the Zenjis only set up recently, they may not even have a permanent headquarters yet." Kurapika nodded, looking a bit gloomy.

--

Ryozha hopped up, snapping his laptop shut.

That was all that saved his life as the entire wall of his room caved in, the crummy little bed smashing to the floor as a pile of wood pulp.

(Still more Author's Notes (what a surprise)- so, a few new players introduced, or at least hinted at. This chapter turned out rather bloodier than I'd originally intended- I suppose that's a given when Feitan gets loose, and when a powerful character like John 'Cutter' Graves is going slowly and violently insane. Anyways, things are going to get considerably more chaotic before they're done- the gangwar promised in the blurb only has two sides so far, and one of them is nearly obliterated. That's going to change -grin- )


	4. Chapter 4

((AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, here we are once again; I had hoped to have this chapter up by the end of October, but wasn't able to finish it in time. Doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month- .com, for the curious) in November pretty much killed that month, and December was crazy with holidays and whatnot, as always. By way of apology, I wrote a bunch extra; this chapter is nearly double the length of the previous ones. Anyways, if you're still following, thanks for reading, and enjoy! I _will_ finish this story, one way or another))

Ryozha sprawled across the room, too shocked to even swear, but managed to right himself before he broke his neck against the wall, planting both feet firmly. Then, rather than rocketing back the other way, he collapsed, surpressing a sob as pain stabbed through his side and leg. He clutched at himself, then blinked as he felt blood oozing from beneath a ragged tear in his shorts just below belt-level. -_Oh, this isn't good... Some of the flying splinters tagged me... must have been ahead of the pressure wave so I didn't even have __**that**__ much warning. And it took my player with it, too, so I don't even have music to try and help me concentrate past the pain. Bloody wonderful._-

The Speed Hunter knew he didn't have time to scrabble around in the wreckage for the missing player, although he could've sworn that he could faintly hear... -_Disco? Okay, I __**know**__ I didn't put that on there... and what the heck does 'Hands up, baby Hands up' have to do with anything?_- he managed to wonder before another smashing wall of force blasted straight through the floor, nearly knocking him onto the floor below.

Recovering his footing, he leapt, stifling a wince as he blurred to ground level, swallowing his momentum and racing forwards. Another pulse of force crashed into the ground, leaving an oddly-shaped crater, but he paid the impact little mind, having managed to shift to Gyo in time to see where it was coming from. -_Great... so, unless I want to risk splattering myself all over a wall when my concentration slips at the wrong moment, I've been downgraded from 'impossibly fast' to 'impressively but not mind-blowingly fast', which shuts out a lot of my tricks._-

As he thought, he swarmed up the building face, handholds and footholds found or made in rapid succession so that he was on the roof in just over three seconds. There, he caught a brief glimpse of a man in an outfit oddly like Kurapika's, but with longer hair, a mask, and... -_A sleeve full of Nen rather than arm? Oooooookay..._- As he reached the rooftop, though, the would-be assassin reached out his Nen-arm, stretching it to impossible lengths, and swooped away, reeling himself in along a grappling line made of Nen-arm.

Ryozha stared for a second, then leapt sideways as the rooftop was partially smashed in- apparently his foe didn't need long to reorient himself. The boy shook his head, trying to clear it. Thankfully, he'd been alert enough to grab the kinetic energy from the spray of roofing materials, rather than simply being shredded again. Gathering himself, he sprinted forwards, taking one of his trademark long, floating leaps from rooftop to rooftop, bouncing from the lower roofs to the higher one that his assailant had fled to, dodging between hammering Nen-fists and open-palm blows.

---

While Ryozha danced his strange rooftop dance of death with his long-armed opponent, Kurapika and Leorio were on the far side of town, meeting with one of the Nostrad informants.

Leorio glanced at Kurapika. The slight blonde didn't seem particularly perturbed that they were standing outside a grungy tattoo parlour in one of the nastiest part of town. The premed Hunter cast a dubious glance at the sign that proclaimed, barely legible under the soot and grime, that they were about to enter 'Razorthorn Tattoos and Desine', which he could only assume was meant to be 'and Design'.

Kurapika ignored the grime and shoved the door open with a splintering noise, blinking as he glanced down at the mangled doorframe and ex-lock. Apparently he'd been so lost in thought that he hadn't even noticed the slight resistance that the cheap lock offered.

A shout came from the back, and a brawny woman erupted from behind a curtain wielding a hefty cricket bat.

"Alright, y'mugs, raise 'em!" she roared, brandishing the bat, then paused. "Y're not from around here, are ya?" she said, blinking at Kurapika's odd clothing.

Kurapika ignored the question and said "Rose? I'm from the Nostrad clan. Hopefully they actually remembered to tell you I was coming for a change…"

The tentative Rose raised an eyebrow. "YOU'RE the top legbreaker they were sendin'? Y'look like y'ain't got th'muscle of a twelve-year old girl!"

The Kurata's mouth twisted a little, but he just nodded. "Mr. Nostrad asked me to get the body-collector business moving properly, and you are the contact name I was given."

Rose guffawed. "Yup. Ol' Thorny Rose goes a looooong way back with Light. I was his moll, once." she said with a sly grin.

Kurapika just gazed at her impassively, but Leorio… gaped.

"An' who's this one?" she said. "Suit's cheap enough t'be a goomba, but he's too skinny t'be a proper legbreaker… o'course, so're you, blondie, but…"

Leorio's mouth snapped shut into a frown, and Rose laughed even harder. "Don't worry y'r little head about it, juniour. So, what can Thorny Rose do for ya, kid?" she asked Kurapika, leading the two Hunters through the beaded curtain and into the back of the shop.

"Why 'Thorny Rose'?" Leorio interrupted, flopping down onto the row of grubby chairs. Kurapika shot him a displeased glance, but had to admit he was curious as well- curious enough not to interrupt him in return to drag the conversation back on topic. He sat as well, inclining his head slightly to Rose.

"Hrm... y'come all this way, an' ya want to hear my story, eh, kid?" Rose asked, with a shrewd glance at Kurapika. "Well, there's enough showgirl left in me t'want t'oblige ya."

"It was a long time ago… longer'n I'm willing to admit to a couple o' pups like you two… right here in Landinium. Things were different then- the center of the city was a little rougher, a little cruder- not so uptight like it is now, and I was a star."

They called me the 'Golden-Throated Devil', back then- the voice that stole the wings of a thousand angels, they said." Rose laughed, a quick, self-indulgent chuckle.

"My papa always said it was better to be loved for your talent than your looks, on account o' one lasting a lot longer'n the other, and, being daddy's little girl, even then, I tried to live by that. Still, if I were dumb enough to believe my own press releases, I was quite the looker."

Then _he_ blew int'town. There was an air of mystery to 'im back then- dashing and dangerous, one o' th'OLD school Made Men. Light Nostrad, although I didn't find that out until later- 'e was just goin' by Vinnie 'Curtains' then, on th'run from some deep, dark secret." Another bark of laughter.

"Later on I found 'e was just dodgin' a tax rap, of all things." A quick shake of her henna'ed head and another laugh. "Even so, 'Curtains' was just that to a lot o' folk, workin' as a 'Cleaner' for the local Mafioso honchos." A sigh. "Oh, I knew he was bad news, even when I was young 'n stupid. But there was somethin' almost irresistible about him. And I suppose it didn't hurt that he was devastatingly good looking, either."

The tattoo artist glanced at her audience, both of whom were visibly squirming, and burst out laughing so loudly that a goon poked his head into the back to see what had happened. Spotting the uncomfortable expressions on the two young Hunters, he smirked and withdrew. Rose ignored him and continued talking.

"Soon, me an' 'Curtains' were seein' one another. It wasn't love, we both of us were too selfish for that kinda thing, but there was a spark there to set the night on **fire**. Anyway, at that point, I was pretty much the toast o' th'town- was doing gigs all over the country." A cynical twist of her mouth. "Never become a megastar, boys, it ain't worth it. A different lousy bed every night, crummy food with fancy names, spendin' more time travellin' than y'do at the overpriced half-frozen mansion with useless heating systems that y'r manager insisted was good for yer image, and them bastards in the audience never seem t'remember to get the thorns taken off th'stems afore they toss their bouquets."

A sharp, dazzling smile flickered for a second, shaving away the years for a brief instant, then went cynical as the years piled back on. "Yeah, that's how I got my nick- I lost it on stage at one point when I got hit with one too many bundles o' thorns, gave the lot of 'em a piece of my mind and the rough side o' my tongue." The smile got even sharper. "They tol' me a while back tha' some o' the folks in the audience that day were still in therapy twen'y years later after somma th'stuff I called 'em. All the papers after that started callin' me the Thorny Rose."

"After that, things started t'move fast; 'parently me goin' wild like that on stage was a real turn-on for ol' 'Curtains'. That was when he told me his real name, and what he was REALLY doing in Landinium. Ah, but that was a night to remember." the ex-singer said, her smile hovering between 'wistful' and 'lustful'. Then she shrugged. "But it didn't last. He got called back by 'is Don, and he went. Whatever his other faults, Light was loyal, and he provided for his little girl better than... well, that's probably saying too much, now."

Rose offered the two Hunters a brief, simple smile. "In any case, most of the info I've collected is already ready to go- it's in the manilla folder on the table here." she said, indicating it with an open-palmed smack. "'fraid I'm an old-fashioned sorta gal, so you'll have to excuse the hard-copy... computers and I, we don't really get along all that well."

Leorio started to say something, but this time it was Kurapika who cut him off, standing and bowing slightly to Rose. "Thank you. Will you be available later if we have questions?"

Rose gave him another look, even shrewder than the last. For a brief instant, her eyes were calculating, weighing and assessing the young 'legbreaker' that her old lover had sent. Then she nodded. "You and your friends are welcome here, kid. Just have 'em say you sent'em, and this is a haven for you and yours."

Kurapika gave her a look in return, then bowed again, dragging Leorio to his feet with the same motion. "Thank you." he said, and led the way back outside, snagging the folder with a smooth motion on the way by.

"Crazy old..." Leorio muttered, then stopped when Kurapika shook his head sharply.

"No." he told his friend. "Think for a moment. Not what she told us, but _why_. Remember, she thinks we're both with the Nostrads, at least for now."

Leorio blinked, but did as Kurapika ordered, pondering what they had been told. Eventually, he said slowly "She... was letting us know... why the Boss Nostrad trusted her?"

Kurapika nodded. "And letting us know that she wasn't to be trifled with, either. I suspect she's got a stronger hand in Landinium than that pokey little shop would indicate- where did all that money from her stardom go? I'd be willing to put money on her having a solid information network all throughout the city's underworld. And did you see the shop floor? It's seen a LOT of wear. That's a very busy tattoo parlour, and most of her clientele is likely to be thugs and underworlders. She probably hears about most of the deals and plans in the city over the course of a workday or two."

Leorio glanced down at the younger teen. "Not a bad setup." he acknowledged. "Guess we should be glad she's on our side."

"As much as she is, anyway." Kurapika said, not bothering to clarify the statement. He was already leafing through the folder as he walked, lost in thought.

Leorio looked at him again, then sighed and kept walking.

---

Unknown to Ryozha, the fight that raged along the rooftops carried him within a few hundred metres of where John 'Cutter' Graves was holding court in the run-down old warehouse that served as home base for the Devil Hooligans.

In less than a day, it was already starting to look a bit less run-down, at least inside; 'Cutter' wasn't hearing voices, exactly, but images and ideas buzzed and fizzed up his arm to colour his imaginings with surreal, impregnable fortifications. Already, the simplest of his ideas had been implemented- the interior walls were coated with multiple layers of sheet metal, improvised armour plating until they could get better.

The particle cannons they had 'liberated' from the firefight between the Turvy Hall Shamleggers and Zenji's Mafiosi were set up at strategic firing angles along the street and back alley that ran along one side of the warehouse, and a few of the Devil Hooligans were working to break down the back and side walls and turn the four-warehouse-block into a single, massive space.

John 'Cutter' Graves himself was alternately slouching and sitting ramrod-straight on what could only be described as a throne on a small dais built of sides of packing crates. One of the Hooligans had turned it up from someplace, a heavy old oaken chair with both clawed armrests and clawed feet with some thin scarlet padding that served to do little other than remind you that your buttocks weren't really _designed_ to park for extended periods of time on something that time had aged to be harder than the average granite slab.

'Cutter' shifted again as he stared down at the Shamlegger representative who had come under flag of truce. Inwardly, he was gloating. Despite the disaster he and his had inadvertently visited on the other gang, they were looking for a join-up. Word on the street was already getting around that the Devil Hooligans had a guy… maybe even a boss… who had faced down the goombas and won.

"So, y'see…" the Shamlegger rep was saying, "We need a safehouse for some of our boys, th'Number-men are getting a little too close for comfort."

John Graves nodded. "The warehouse here is big and obscure enough, and we're working on getting it set up properly, armour-wise, but we'll need some better weaponry if we want to be able to hold off the Mafia goons." he said.

The Shamlegger rep gave him a look, but didn't comment, instead choosing to agree. "All the boys what need some hiding are ones who can handle a piece- they'll probably be bringing their own weapons with 'em, and we can probably throw in some…" he paused to glance significantly at the particle cannon emplacements, "… MORE of the weapons we took from the Number-men."

'Cutter' nodded a second time, shifting yet again. He felt an oppressive, vague sense of unease when he slouched across the throne in a position that was as comfortable as he could manage; only sitting rigidly erect dispelled the feeling. Of course, it also dispelled feeling in his buttocks, prompting a change of position, which brought the return of the sense of unease. He glared suspicious at the mace for a moment, then dismissed the thought.

"Sounds good to me." he said. "We'll turn this place into a fortress!" _An aerie_. A faded voice at the back of his mind echoed, but he ignored it.

------

Ryozha, meanwhile, passed by oblivious to all this, caught up in a surreal whirl of violence as roofing surfaces, cornices and the occasional gargoyle smashed to flinders near him as his long-armed enemy sought to crush his nimbler opponent.

The Speed Hunter couldn't manage much speed, at the moment; already, his right leg was beginning to give warning stabs of pain that he was overexerting it badly, trying to keep off his left to prevent the ragged gash across his hip from opening again, or at least from opening further. He was bouncing around like a ping-pong ball in a drier, which was the only thing that had kept him alive so far, but he simply couldn't muster enough speed right now to catch up with the assassin.

Ryozha was thinking hard. Or at least trying to. A bizarre clarity of focus coupled with a strange muzziness of thought… along with the beginnings of a blinding headache… warned that he was at least mildly concussed, probably from something slapping into his head during the assassin's initial attack.

His kinetic battery was already running close to dry from keeping him mobile with minimal leg movement and sloppy control, and, staring at the almost-pure-golden aura, inspiration struck; one of those ideas that only really looks good while seriously drunk or concussed.

On a wide rooftop, Ryozha stopped dead and watched with a kind of detached interest as his assailant swung to a higher perch, turned, and paused. Then the tiny figure shrugged and fired off a hammering blow, a huge Nen-claw tearing through the air.

At the last possible second, Ryozha hopped aside. The concussive backwash hit him… and vanished as he absorbed it. Mostly. The shock threw him across the roof, and he froze in midair an instant before he got tossed off the roof, absorbing that momentum, too, and dropping to the roof. He giggled faintly, swaying drunkenly around another smashing hit that hurled him the other way.

Another near miss flipped him over completely, and he actually hovered upside-down for a split second before landing on his head. He revived after blacking out for an instant, rolling instinctively to one side just in time to avoid being splattered by yet another monstrous Nen-hand. This time he only went a few feet, the pain in his head helping him focus at least enough to want to avoid more pain.

Another near-miss, and Ryozha was… there. Right in the assassin's face in a single long, blurred leap. The long-armed fighter jerked back in surprise, then frankly _stared_ as the boy stopped dead in midair, wobbled a bit, and then crashed to the rooftop. Then exploded.

Kinetic power erupted out from the Speed Hunter, ragged streamers of red pseudo-Nen clawing across the rooftop, brief shimmers of gold torn off as well as his aura was ruptured by the frenetic, nearly accidental power release. His attacker, though, didn't fare so well. One blast hammered him into the rooftop, while a second swept him right off the forty-story building.

A few seconds later, Ryozha weakly managed to scrabble his phone out and autodialed Leorio's number.

His assailant was hanging nervously by his extended Nen-arm like a battered pinata below a building ledge. He heard the faint beeping noises of rapid dialing, and dropped silently into the late morning mists.

------

"You disappoint me, Sadaso." a soft voice said.

The Nen-armed fighter flinched, still covered in rooftop grime from his encounter with Ryozha, flinched back. This earned him a puzzled look from his teacher.

After a frozen moment, she shook her head. "And again." she commented. "You seriously still think I'm going to punish you with physical violence for not complying precisely enough with my wishes? I thought I had taught you better than that by now. And you _did_ withdraw as soon as he called for help, as I instructed."

Sadaso straightened up, withdrawing his Nen-arm and standing defenseless before his teacher, the slim young woman known simply as Barb. "I still don't really know why you took me in as a student, 'potential' or no." he said bluntly. "But I'll do what I can as best I can."

Barb nodded. "And that's why you're still here. Of course, I wanted you to _test_ the Speed Hunter, not try and splatter him from hiding. The very fact that he even managed to survive after a roaming battle with the level of injury you described him as having is mildly impressive. You aren't the weakling you were four months ago when I found you; you might even be able to make Floor Master at the Heavenly Arena now without needing to Newbie-hunt."

The Huntress brushed her short dark hair out of her eyes and gave Sadaso a direct look. "Still, overall, the results aren't bad. Through you, I was able to take his measure somewhat, and recovering from that should slow him down a bit and reduce the competition for the Codex. The rest of the team should arrive soon, and we can move on."

------

Ryozha groaned, then sneezed as the almost overpowering scent of antiseptic slammed into his sinuses.

"Is there anything worse than waking up in a hospital?" he grumbled as he opened his eyes.

Then he lay very still for a while, staring around and taking in the cracked walls, peeling paint, and occasional cockroach of the dingy back room he now occupied.

"Okay, waking up in some scungy back room and needing to check if my kidneys are still there is definitely worse." the boy Hunter muttered.

After gingerly checking his back for surgical scars (none, thankfully), he tried to sit up, then lay back again as gingerly as he could manage while the room spun.

"I reeeeeeeally hope it was Leorio that found me and brought me here, because that means I can kill him for it." Ryozha grumbled, glaring around. "Mouth feels awful... must've thrown up... but I'm not too hungry, so it can't have been very long."

A glance at the time on his phone confirmed that it hadn't, indeed, been very long, and also that he still had his phone. He sighed and lay back, staring at the ceiling.

After a moment or two, Leorio barged into the room, cheerfully slamming the door open and letting it bang shut.

Ryozha cringed and managed a weak glare at the Premed Hunter. "If you don't stop making so much noise, I swear by all that is holy that I will _end_ you." he snarled as best he could manage.

Leorio chuckled as he rummaged around in his doctor's bag. "Nah, you won't." he said, still sounding irritatingly cheerful. "Doubt that you could get more than a step or two in the condition you're in. You're concussed, boyo."

"Thanks." Ryozha muttered sourly. "I never would have figured that out on my own."

Leorio abruptly turned serious. "This has happened to you before?" he asked.

Ryozha blinked, confused, but nodded without thinking, then groaned and clutched his head. "Never anything serious, but yeah- you grow up in a fight school and get involved in sparring sessions, it's gonna happen once or twice."

Leorio nodded gravely and flipped open a book, digging through it.

"Your bedside manner sucks, you know that?" Ryozha groused after the other ignored him for a while.

Leorio ignored him, then dug around in his bag a bit more. He tossed Ryozha a bottle of pills. "Paracetamol." he said briefly. "Two tablets a day, and get LOTS of rest. Senritsu has already picked up your gear... what wasn't smashed flat, anyways... along with everything she could from your hotel room. You're going to have to tell us what happened. Tomorrow." he finished, turning to go.

Pausing in the doorway, he glanced back. "This is Thorny Rose' Tattoo Parlour. You should be safe here for now."

Ryozha's eyes flickered irritably around the room. "For a given value of 'safe'..." he grumbled, but was too tired and sick to argue. He drifted into a restless sleep.

------

Almost immediately after closing his eyes, he found himself in the Landinium dream-analogue once more, although it was far less 'real' seeming than last time, wobbling sickeningly in and out of focus.

"This is NOT conducive to restful sleep, you know." he complained aloud.

"You are unwell, Swiftmind?" the voice of the Dreamer Under Landinium wanted to know.

"That's one way of putting it." Ryozha snapped. "I was attacked and injured, including a concussion, and having you poking at my already-rattled brain probably isn't helping much."

"I see." the voice said, and Ryozha was abruptly alone in an endless expanse of darkness.

He barely had time to blink before he tumbled down, down, down... into a deep, dreamless sleep.

------

Kurapika waited in a fog-shrouded alleyway for his contact, shoulders hunched slightly against the biting chill the drifting mists brought with them. -_Why do stoolies always want to meet someplace miserable?_- he wondered. -_Is it some kind of penance for the act of betrayal they feel they're commiting, or something?_-

A shape sidled crabwise out of the mist, and Jackie the Rat slipped up to Kurapika. Wordlessly, the blonde chain-user held out a fat envelope that Jackie opened and carefully counted. Satisfied, the Rat turned his beady eyes on Kurapika.

"Dunno whatcha think y'can do, a wee girl like you." the short man snickered, "But y'pay well enough to get the info outta me. The gangs... the locals, y'see?.. are moving to band together. New guy working the angles, he don't like you goomba-types musclin' in on his territory..." the wheezing voice trailed off as Kurapika's attention left him.

Kurapika whirled away from the informant, his cloak flung aside and his eyes burning red, chains writhing out like live things as he searched the thickening fog with all six senses. A familiar touch of Nen had brushed across his own.

-_Genei Ryodan. Where?_- flickered across the young Hunter's mind as all else was washed away.

A phenomenal vertical leap, and he was gone, fifteen yards straight up to catch a piece of fire escape and sprint up them to the rooftops.

Jackie nervously eyed the spot where Kurapika had been, then edged over to try and grab the cloak- it might be worth a bob or two at the pawnbrokers, after all- then he jerked back with a startled squeak much like his namesake as a chain slashed out of the fog-haunted darkness to spear the cloak and yank it up and away into the night.

------

Senritsu answered her phone casually, then jerked it away from her sensitive ear as Kurapika all but yelled "Senritsu! Call Thorny Rose, ask her if the Ryodan have been seen in Landinium!"

"That's one of the first things I checked before we came here, Kurapika." the little music Hunter said calmly, regaining her composure. "They've never been known to operate here, and, at least as of two days ago, hadn't been seen here. I know how you feel about them, after all."

Kurapika swore under his breath with considerable feeling. "I could have _sworn_..." he finally muttered, then stopped as Senritsu interrupted.

"Wait... 'Thorny' Rose?" she questioned. "The Rose Haller that is our contact here is _that_ Rose Haller? The one they called the Golden-Throated Devil?"

Kurapika, still distracted, made an affirmative sort of noise, then stared at his phone in bafflement as Senritsu let out a girlish, excited squeak. He must have said something, or at least made a confused noise, because Senritsu chided him gently.

"Well, how do you **think** I would feel at the chance to meet a musical icon? I _am_ a music Hunter, after all..."

Kurapika just shook his head and rolled his eyes as they slowly dimmed back to black. Hanging up, he dropped back down to street level, making his way back to Rose' shop.

------

Ryozha was awakened the next morning by a thunderous argument.

"I don't like it." a female voice he didn't recognize bellowed. "Hunter-fights are nothin' but grief, and you had t'go and bring that brat into my shop? The place'll be wrecked before the day is out, I guarantee it!"

Senritsu's quiet voice interjected. "You… _do_ realize that both Kurapika and I, Mr. Nostrad's messengers, are Hunters as well, don't you, Ms. Haller?"

'Ms. Haller' sputtered for a moment, then growled "Makes no nevermind t'me. The boy's not part of my agreement with Light. Out he goes before whatever attacked him decides to smash my shop as well."

Then Kurapika's voice cut across the conversation like a blade. A simple "He is."

"What?" 'Ms. Haller's' voice rose at least three octaves in the space of that single syllable, and Ryozha jerked hard enough to make the bed clatter. Whoever this Haller woman was, she had a voice like the angel that was supposed to call the dead.

Kurapika's voice, nevertheless, managed to cut through. "I am Light Nostrad's envoy; if I deem the boy needs to stay here, Hunter or no, then under your agreement with Light, he stays."

Ms. Haller roared in outrage for a moment, then started to yell.

"Excuse me..." Ryozha called, ignoring the profanity that was rapidly reaching epic levels of both volume and creativity. Unfortunately, him ignoring it didn't give his voice the strength to cut through it.

"EXCUSE ME!" he yelled, with about as much success.

Taking a moment to concentrate, he jiggled the bed as hard as he could, rattling the cheap cot across the floor, then amplifying the motion with his Nen until it was nearly bouncing off the ceiling, making a phenomenal ***BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG*** that left him feeling like his brains were about to ooze out his ears... and _still_ barely managed to penetrate the uproar from outside.

The tiny back room was quickly stuffed with people- Leorio (who had somehow contrived to be the first one in there, despite being manifestly slower than Kurapika or Senritsu), Kurapika, Senritsu, and a big woman that Ryozha muzzily assumed to be Ms. Haller. Senritsu was kind of hopping a little, suggesting to the Speed Hunter's wandering mind that her foot had been stomped on, but he managed to focus a little.

Unnoticed in the corner, Ryozha's player lit up inside his bag and began playing "Vertigo" by U2, prompting a very odd look in that direction by Senritsu, the only one that could hear it.

"Hi." the boy managed. "I'm kinda involved in this too, you know."

'Ms. Haller' inhaled deeply, getting ready to shout, and Ryozha glared at a point slightly above her left shoulder.

"If you start yelling again, I swear I'll bounce this cot off your noggin." he growled weakly.

'Ms. Haller' blinked and fell silent, nonplussed.

"**Thank** you." the boy muttered. "Look, thanks for sticking up for me, Kura-Kura… why did you do that, anyways?" he said, losing his train of thought for a moment.

"DON'T… call… me… Kura-Kura." Kurapika snarled. "But I'm not about to throw you to the wolves while you're helpless. Leorio believes you actually have some worth, and I'm inclined to trust his judgement." the blonde blacklist-Hunter answered, with a sidelong glance at his friend, who was swelling visibly at the compliment.

"On anything not involving women, anyways." Kurapika added, earning a completely unacknowledged glare from Leorio.

Ryozha let out a half-choked snicker, then waved a hand. "Well, thanks for the vote of… confidence… or whatever that was… but Ms. Haller has a point."

Ms. Haller drew herself up magnificently, ready to blast, then paused as she caught what he actually said. "I… wait, what?" she said. "And… uh… don't call me Ms. Haller, kid. Even at my age, I feel like I should be checkin' the room for me mum when folks say that."

Ryozha lay back and stuck up a hand. "First off, I have no idea who the guy was that attacked me, WHY he attacked me, or how he found me. He was dressed a bit like you, Kurapikachu, but with long sleeves and a mask of some kind."

Kurapika twitched, but didn't rise to the bait. "Be that as it may, I can't just toss you out on the street in your condition, brat."

"Your concern is touchOW!" Ryozha yelped as Leorio jabbed him sharply in the thigh.

"At least you didn't open your wound again with that bit of stupidity…" the premed Hunter grumbled.

"Yeah, yeah..." the Speed Hunter said with an irritable wave of his hand. "Still need to figure something out..."

Kurapika cut him off. "You were registered at that hotel under your own name, brat. Anybody with half a brain could have found you, particularly if they had access to the Hunter Association website. Either Senritsu or I will always be less than five minutes away from here for the next few days; that should be long enough to determine whether or not an attack is forthcoming."

Rose looked at him for a moment, then nodded sharply. "Good enough for me." she said. "I agree on not tossing th'brat out like this, although if you start bashing 'round like that again, kid, I'll bounce that cot off **your** noggin."

Ryozha made to respond, then twitched sharply as Leorio jabbed him again.

"Stay put, kid... you'll be bored out of your mind within ten minutes, but if you make things worse, I swear I'll strap you onto that cot and sit on you 'til you're better."

The Speed Hunter grumbled, but acquiesced.

------

Later that same day, Kurapika and Senritsu were sitting outside a small cafe, sipping tea. Leorio was keeping an eye on Ryozha and catching up on his studies, and Rose was running her business, so the two had come alone.

"So what are you thinking?" Senritsu said eventually.

"Nostrad's men should lie low, or leave town." Kurapika announced.

The music Hunter gave him an odd look. "But... that will leave everything to Zenji's men. They'll take over!"

The Kurata almost smiled. "... right about the time that the local gangs finish unifying and come gunning for any Mafiosi they can find."

Senritsu blinked in shock and sat back. "That's... cold." she said eventually.

"I know." Kurapika said. "But it's the safest way, and the route that promises the least bloodshed- no matter who wins, they'll likely be weakened enough for the Nostrad clan to step in and take over without much trouble."

Senritsu nodded, a little gloomily. "You're probably right. But you _do_ know that Mr. Nostrad has only ordered this because he thinks it might somehow bring Neon's Nen ability back if he makes her happy enough, right?"

A cynical bark of something that might have been laughter escaped Kurapika's lips. "Yes, I know. But Landinium is the clearing point for the body-part trade of three continents."

"Ah." Senritsu said, her eyes downcast. "So you're willing to go this far with it because it suits your own ends."

Kurapika simply gave his friend a long look, his face unreadable.

Eventually, he said "If we let slip vague warnings to Zenji's men that the local gangs want to challenge his superiourity, that pig will most likely respond by digging in as hard as he can, forcing a confrontation and weakening both sides dramatically."

"And what about the people who get caught in the crossfire?" Senritsu asked quietly.

Kurapika averted his eyes and didn't answer.

-----

That evening, Kurapika was sitting a restless watch over Ryozha in the back of the Razorthorn Tattoos and Desine. The Speed Hunter was tossing and turning in a restless doze, muttering and slightly feverish. Eventually, the Kurata gave up on reading his book and leaned over and prodded Ryozha awake.

The younger hunter came awake with a start and a shudder, shaking violently until he calmed down, and then pulled off the wristband he was wearing, snapping out of Zetsu with a brief blaze of Nen-light. He rubbed his eyes for a moment, then looked at Kurapika.

Kurapika tried to go back to his book, but the stare was getting to him. "You rely on toys to keep your control?" he asked eventually without looking up.

Ryozha's eyes narrowed. "Would you rather I slept without it?" he asked. "I don't wear it when I'm out in the wilderness, to try and work on that control you just mentioned so dismissively. I've woken up with everything within twenty meters frozen solid, or smashed to rubble and matchsticks. It doesn't happen often, but it happens enough that I'm not about to risk it in a populated area. And with that dream I just had, this place would probably be kindling right now."

The blonde Hunter just grunted. "You think far too highly of yourself, brat."

Ryozha started up, glaring, then sank back, his eyes nearly crossing.

"And stay put. You'll never get better if you keep flopping around like a wounded goldfish." Kurapika added, still not bothering to look up.

"Argh…" Ryozha grumbled, but before he could say anything, Kurapika interrupted.

"Why **are** you hanging around, anyway? The attempted help, useless though it's been so far, is… annoying, at best… although I suppose the thought counts for something."

Ryozha gave him a flat look. "Your gratitude is underwhelming. I came to Leorio for a brief assist on a Hunt I'm doing- I needed someone to help me talk my way into the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities…" Kurapika snorted in amusement.

"Well, that _is_ one thing he's good at." the blonde Blacklist Hunter interjected.

Annoyed, but restraining himself to a simple nod, Ryozha continued "I found what I was looking for there, but I can't read it; it's in an ancient language. Leorio heard you were coming into town and suggested I ask you. What with everything being so crazy over the last couple of days, I haven't had a chance to ask."

"I would have thought that even you would be better prepared than that, brat. What kind of Hunter are you, anyway? To be blocked by something so minor?" Kurapika snarked, still refusing to look up from his book.

Ryozha lay carefully still, counting to ten, then a hundred, then ten thousand, all in the space of a few seconds as he slowly turned bright red. This accomplished, he started to yell.

"Well **excuse** _**me**_ if the records I found weren't written in one of the six ancient languages I'm fluent in, or one of the other nine that I can translate with the proper resources, or one of the two dozen or so I can at least recognize by sight!" he shouted.

"It took me three months to follow the trail _this_ far. I started in Western Bederusse, crisscrossing the steppes and following the river traderoutes. I eventually wound up at Tel Sif'riyah in the South; I cleaned up an old Cuneiform tablet that no-one else had been able to read with my Nen, and it led me to the En' Elhasrd dig. Unfortunately, I got there too late, and the records I needed were already shipped to the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities here in Landinium. **WHO'S** unprepared, you effeminate blonde geek?" Ryozha roared.

Kurapika set aside his book, steepled his fingers, and watched the younger boy for a moment, his eyes half-hooded. "And you could have just read the archaeological journals and saved yourself months of travelling."

Ignoring Ryozha's sputtering, he reached down and fished around in the debris on the floor for a moment. Pulling out the folder Ryozha had discarded in disgust when he found he couldn't focus, Kurapika flipped through it for a moment, then looked at Ryozha once more.

"Ancient G'nith." he said after a moment.

Ryozha sat up and stared at him, before clutching his head and sinking back down. "So... can you read it?" he asked once the urge to vomit had passed.

"Of course not." Kurapika said. "In thirty seconds I've come as far as you have on this hunt of yours, without even leaving my chair." he observed. "To my knowledge, only one man has made any particular progress in translating it- Professor Julian Ivo."

After a moment of unsteady staring, Ryozha shook his head gingerly. "I know I've heard that name before someplace... pass me my laptop, will you? I'm assuming that your lovely Mafia contact here would prefer I didn't barf all over her floor and/or your shoes."

Kurapika just returned to his book while Ryozha glared at him, eventually grating out "... please?" through gritted teeth.

Wordlessly, the blonde Hunter passed over the backpack holding the laptop and promptly went back to his book while Ryozha popped it open, banging keys for a while. After a moment or three, he closed the laptop for a bit, laying back with his eyes shut.

"I really hate this head injury thing..." he muttered.

Kurapika made a noise, obviously intending to say something, but Ryozha ignored him with a muttered "Oh, shut up. I know you're all superiour and everything, but I'm not totally helpless."

Then he snapped the laptop open and hammered on the keys with such speed that Kurapika actually glanced up from his book. After a second or two, he flopped back and waited for the room to stop spinning, the screen triumphantly displaying a biography on the Hunter's Site for Professor Julian Ivo... of the Landinium Museum of Arts and Antiquities.

Once Ryozha had managed to focus on the screen once more, his eyes went vacant as anger, hatred, embarrassment, confusion, and headache all warred for dominance in his expression.

Finally, he tilted his head slightly so that Kurapika was under the full force of his watery-eyed glare.

Before he could say anything, Kurapika commented offhandedly "Professor Ivo, of course, contributes frequently to the Archaelogical Journals, some of which I read occasionally, a habit you might do well to pick up. It would probably save you some time on these hunts of yours."

After a silent stare that went on for so long that Kurapika actually glanced up from his book. Then the younger Hunter shook his head. "I'm really starting to wonder why Gon values your friendship so much."

Kurapika blinked slightly. "... what?" he said after a moment.

"You could have said that a little sooner, you know. The Hunter Site charges a small fortune for info acquired through them, you jerk." Ryozha said with some heat in his voice.

Closing his book once again and laying on his lap, Kurapika gave Ryozha an odd look. "I heard somewhat about the hunt you went on with Killua and Gon. You're all stunningly rich, now, what do you care?"

Ryozha barked a bitter laugh. "Oh, and that makes it alright, then?" he asked. "I suppose I should be thankful that I've actually found something you're willing to admit you don't know, no matter how indirectly... the money is tied up in court right now as material evidence against Boss Myoji... and while the Southern Peace tax authorities figure out how to get as much of it away from me as they can possibly get away with. I had _some_ money set aside, although, well... guess it's ramen noodles for dinner for a while. Thanks a lot. Jerk."

Ryozha rolled over in the bed, presenting his back to Kurapika. After a moment, Kurapika shrugged. "Your own impatience is your undoing, brat." was his only comment before coolly going back to his book.

Then he paused in the middle of turning the page and looked at Ryozha. "Wait a minute... unless you've been buying land or something, there's no way even **you** could have burned through the money you made at the battle tower in a matter of months."

Ryozha made a slight coughing noise, and, although he didn't turn over, even a casual glance would reveal the fiery blush creeping up the back of his neck and even turning his _ears_ bright red. He mumbled something, and, when Kurapika didn't respond, repeated it louder.

"I went home after I finished with Gon and Killua, and my parents were there. They wanted to know how I was doing, and when they saw how much money I had made, my mom put me on a budget and told me I wasn't allowed to exceed it." he said, sounding extremely embarassed.

Kurapika gave the younger boy a long, expressionless stare. When this failed to produce any results, he demanded "Let me see that budget."

Ryozha silently passed the laptop over with the appropriate program open, which Kurapika studied for a few seconds. "You really don't know much about budgeting, do you, brat?" he said.

Tapping a few keys, he handed the computer back to Ryozha, who had flipped over to stare at him in wide-eyed shock as he started to mess around with the budget spreadsheet.

"There you go. Spread the expense across several months and it becomes negligible. You really are an idiot."

Ryozha raised a pained eyebrow, then subsided into a grumbling half-slumber. Cracking one eye open for a second, he mumbled "Thanks. And you're still a jerk." before drifting off completely.

------

Elsewhere in the city, Senritsu lurked in the shadows a few blocks from the Devil Hooligan's warehouse. She had followed Jackie the Rat (nearly) there on Kurapika's advice, since the Kurata didn't trust the informant, and was now listening in on the conversation he was holding with someone he called 'Cutter'.

------

"So yeah, Cutter, I told 'im what you said t'me to say t'him." the Rat told his boss.

John Graves gave him a look. "I'm glad." he said shortly, "But please stop talking like that."

"Eh… like what, boss?" the informant asked, puzzled.

"Never mind." Cutter said, shaking his head and slumping down on his throne yet again as he set the mace aside. "But this's good- if I've got th'head goomba over at the Nossies right, he'll pull out, let us and the Zenji-types beat each other bloody before he tries to move back in."

"Isn'at a bad t'ing?" Huge Jackie wanted to know. "We won't ha' that much t'defend ourselves wid if'n we go all out t'bring down the Zenjis."

Cutter smirked. "Well, normal-like, aye, we'd be havin' some trouble; but these out-of-towners aren't Landinium boys; they don't know what it means when all th'gangs 'round these parts get together."

"**All** the gangs?" someone echoed.

"Heh… yep, all th'gangs. Sooner or later." Cutter repeated, a smirk clearly audible in his voice.

"Uh… speakin' o' all th'gangs…" Techy Teddie, one of the new additions the Hooligans had gained when the Shamleggers merged with them, spoke up, "You might wanna see this."

There was a general shuffling as the various gangmembers huddled around the screen. After a moment, Cutter commented "This i' Ripper Jack's website, innit? Crazy bugger, but 'e usually puts up some good brawl footage. Pity s'usually silent, tho'."

"Yeh. 'e's totally looney, crazier'n a bagful o' hedgehogs, and meaner'n a blue haired grannie wot's been denied 'er tea. But t'other side was gettin' some good odds, too- Ripper Jack's Boys up agin' Billy Slasher's Shock Monsters."

John Graves frowned, picking up the mace and toying with it. "That's not good." he mused. "I was planning on leaving them for later, when we were stronger, but both gangs have phenomenal fighters. They would have been very useful as shock troops and frontline fighters. If I'd known, I would have put a stop to this."

"Hah… may as well try and stop th'tide by spittin' at it, Cutter me lad." Teddie chortled, waving a hand at the screen.

There, amidst the poor lighting and jerky camera work, Ripper Jack's Boys could be seen hollering and limbering up, enough cutlery on display to stock several kitchen shops, and a plethora of guns, several drawing admiring whistles from Techy Teddie as the camera panned over them.

"Th' Shock Monsters 're in for a night of it, tha's for sure." the tech commented.

On-screen, the Boys were reacting to a noise, one whose source became apparent fairly quickly as a huge truck smashed straight through a warehouse wall to scatter the gangers, followed by the Shock Monsters piling out and wading into the fray, their trademark electrified knuckledusters swinging and sparking.

"Coo-ie, 'd hate t'be the Bobby what had t'try and break **that** up." Huge Jackie commented as nearly a full city block became a writhing tangle of fighting men, ambushes and counter-ambushes popping out, blades flashing, guns blazing, and more exotic weapons leaving the occasional streak of sparks or fire across the screen.

"That's a good question, actually…" John Graves muttered, rubbing his chin with the mace head. "Why _haven't_ the police intervened? If I recognize the locale, they're no more than a block away from the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities, and that's usually _heavily_ guarded."

A chuckle. "Knowing those bloody daft buggers, they were prolly hopin' for some coppers t'turn up an' add to th'fun'."

"And yet…"

"Th'bit I wanted y't'see I' comin' up, Cutter." Teddie cut in.

Silence rolled over the knot of gangers around the screen, then suddenly the noise of someone trying not to retch and a heavy clang as John 'Cutter' Graves' mace slipped from numb fingers

"Good Lor'…" Huge Jackie rumbled, his tone midway between shock and reverence.

"Did you SEE that?" 'Cutter' demanded.

"Aye, that I did." Techy Teddie snapped. "'Tis why I had y'come over here, after all. There's a couple o' new players in th' game. An' th'two o' them just butchered nigh on sixty men in less time'n it takes t'tell about it… sixty o' th'most dangerous fighters tha' this town has t'offer, no less."

"Back 'er up, Teddy, lesse what we've got." 'Cutter' ordered.

"T'will no' do any good, Cutter. I ha' already been over it a couple o' times, and they're moving too fast. Th'only truly odd bit tha' I saw was..." a rattle of keys. "Here. Y'saw how it looked like they were all gettin' mowed down by a vehicle-mounted machinegun or two? Those tha' the scrawny little bloke didna cut t'ribbons, anyways..? Well, look here."

"Strewth... the big one, there's bullets comin' out of his _fingers_? Maybe? There isna much t'see, just his hands jerkin' like there's a bit o' kick, an' then whatever poor sods he's pointin' at are shredded."

There was a scraping noise, and then a gentle tapping thud as John Graves slowly rapped the handle of his mace against his chin. "It must be Nen..." he mused to himself. "But what would two powerful Nen-warriors want with a fight like that? They didn't seem to be targetting those gangs in particular, I saw Billy Slasher get out. The location, maybe?"

Louder, he said "Get the word out on the street- Billy Slasher got clear, I want a meet. If we've got monsters on our streets, we need to close ranks and find a way to stop them or get rid of them. And **that** means we can't afford distractions from the Mafia. We're stepping our timetable up."

The little cluster broke up, runners leaving the building, and Senritsu melted into the shadows to hurry back to Thorny Rose' Tattoo emporium.

------

An hour later found her relating her findings to Kurapika, who was still seated in Ryozha's temporary room, stubbornly feigning indifference to the fact that Ryozha was hearing it as well.

"So it looks like you may have been right." Senritsu said finally. "At least some of the Genei Ryodan may be here in Landinium... Franklin, from your description, and possibly Feitan, although there wasn't much to go by."

Ryozha had been working on his laptop since about halfway through Senritsu's report, and here he wordlessly spun it around so the screen was facing Kurapika and Senritsu.

Ripper Jack's site played its final video once more. As the carnage opened up, Senritsu averted her eyes, but Kurapika stared as though trying to tear the truth from the screen by the sheer force of his gaze. The blonde Hunter's hands were rigidly at his sides, hands clutching the base of the heavy old wooden chair he was sitting on.

As the video played, there was an audible crunching noise as the Kurata's grip tightened, crushing the thick wood of the chair. "They're here." he growled.

Ryozha's lips twisted worriedly. "The Genei Ryodan? Here? Why would they be here..?" his voice trailed off as he fought to think through the spreading clouds of muzziness and pain in his head. The steady sleep had done him some good, but he was still far from being fully recovered.

"They're thieves." Kurapika said in a tone that tried to be dismissive and failed miserably. "Obviously, there's something in this city that they want."

The Speed Hunter chewed his lower lip and lay back carefully as he struggled to gather his thoughts. Senritsu gave Kurapika a worried glance as the Kurata stared holes in the wall, his breathing slightly ragged.

"Kurapika..." Ryozha began, his tone that of someone edging around a horrible thought in hope that avoiding thinking about it would somehow make it be less likely to be true. "You seem to know about the Spiders... does... is one of the ones you think is here a torturer?"

The blonde Hunter glared at Ryozha, a strange look in his eyes. "Yes." he said eventually, his voice flat.

Ryozha swallowed audibly. "Then I think I might know what they're here after." he said.

The Speed Hunter flipped his laptop back around and clicked a few times, pulling back to the police reports he had been skimming during one of his brief periods of wakefulness. Kurapika carefully reached out and scrolled down as he scanned the report of the multiple homicides at the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities.

"Feitan's work." he grated. "I've been studying the Ryodan for years, and that sick little waste of flesh revels in this kind of thing. If it's not him, there aren't many who can cause that kind of damage that quickly, and with no evidence that the victim was able to fight back."

"Then we know what they're after." Ryozha said, spinning the laptop to bring up a photo of the scene and spun it back around again. On the screen glowed a message on the carpet, apparently written in blood.

"Warn Ivo."


	5. Chapter 5

((AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hrm... not a lot to say this time. Not everyone is what they seem, and their motives may not be what you think. And if anybody is wondering, yeah, Kurapika is being a bit of a jerk here, but frankly, Ryozha _deserves_ it for being a complete moron))

The next few days passed with agonizing slowness for the bedridden Ryozha. He alternated restless sleep with fitful, easily-exhausted wakefulness. During his brief bouts of lucidity, he trawled the 'net relentlessly, scanning carefully for the slightest tidbit of information that would relate to his Hunt.

Leorio, Senritsu, or Kurapika kept a constant watch over him, rotating in shifts, although attacks were weirdly lacking. His time with Leorio… while he was awake, at least… was filled with laughter, swapping stories about Gon and Killua, outrageous tales about Ryozha's earlier hunts, and Leorio's stories of University life in Landinium. If Senritsu was there, much talk about music was had, and the little music-Hunter pored fascinatedly over Ryozha's weird player, while the latter just shrugged and repeated his vow to ask his Nen-Tech guy, Ping Lee, about it someday.

Kurapika's sessions, in the meantime, were filled with little but long, uncomfortable silences as each tried to pretend the other wasn't there. Finally, on the afternoon of the third day, Ryozha looked up from where he was prodding abstractedly at his laptop.

"Your family name is Kurata, right?" he announced abruptly.

Kurapika raised his eyes from his book and gave Ryozha a hooded glare. "_Clan_ name, yes." he said, his voice carefully neutral.

Ryozha tilted his head to one side, looking at the other curiously. "So… the only Kuratas I can find anything much in the way of a record for are the legendary tribe of hidden warriors whose eyes turn red when they get excited."

Kurapika simply nodded.

Ryozha raised an eyebrow. "So..?" he asked eventually.

"So what?" Kurapika riposted calmly.

"Why is a warrior from one of the hidden tribes working as a mafia goon? Won't the rest of your clan disapprove?" Ryozha asked.

Kurapika glanced up as his eyes flashed, red faintly visible around the edges of the iris. "You presume too much, brat."

Ryozha, poking at his laptop and oblivious, responded "No I don't... I've _seen_ your eyes turn colours, I think. It's hard to tell with the contacts you wear, but I could swear I've seen them go red when you got mad at me."

Belatedly, the Speed Hunter caught onto the massive increase of Nen-pressure and Kurapika's glare, and looked up, startled and almost frightened. At the look of near-fear on the younger boy's face, Kurapika restrained himself, jamming his nose into his book and grabbing ahold of his self control.

After a moment or two, when violence failed to ensue, Ryozha settled back a little from where he had started up, shoving himself to a half-sitting position and closed his eyes, his nen strengthening and smoothing. After a moment or two, he began to shift it around, using the training excercise much like a stress-ball, Nen flickering back and forth across his body, splitting into two to shove near-Kou-levels on his hands, then rejoining across his chest to slide down his body to split again down his legs, Nen-force making the sheets flutter.

After a moment, the strobing Nen-patterns caught Kurapika's attention, and he watched silently over the top of his book for a few minutes.

Eventually, he commented "You're better at that than I would have expected."

Ryozha jerked violently, Nen-light spasming randomly in all directions as his concentration shattered.

"Although your focus could use some work." Kurapika added drily, coming close to being amused in spite of himself.

Ryozha glanced up for a moment, then returned to contemplating his navel, shifting his Nen about once more, although with _far_ less smoothness or speed now that he was splitting his focus.

Reassured by Kurapika being the one to initiate communication this time, Ryozha spoke again. "Seriously, though… what is someone like **you** doing in the mafia, if you're really from the Kurata tribe?"

Kurapika counted slowly to ten, then growled "Do you ever follow the body trafficking business?"

Ryozha blinked and looked up for a second, startled, as his Nen flared and flickered all over the place. "No… eeeeeww!" he exclaimed.

The Kurata gave him a stone-cold glare. "Treasure your innocence, brat."

Ryozha barely caught the comment, though, as he had already returned to doing Nen excercises.

After a moment, he abstractedly asked "Oh, hey… do you know of any Kurata artifacts that could go into a museum? I **am** a treasure-Hunter after all, and that would… be…"

His voice trailed off as Kurapika lurched to his feet, breathing heavily. "The only 'artifacts' I have to my name are a broken sword-pair and some clothing I outgrew when I was far younger than you."

With that, the Kurata swept out of the room, bashing the door open and furiously ordering Leorio in on guard duty, storming out before the other could protest or even respond.

Scratching his head, the premed Hunter wandered into the pokey little back room, where Ryozha was still staring in slack-jawed shock at the door Kurapika had just stomped through.

"… seriously, kid, what'd you say?" Leorio said after a minute.

Ryozha threw up his hands, ignoring the dirty look that Leorio gave him for moving around so much. "I DON'T KNOW!" he said.

"What, your short-term memory's that bad..?" Leorio responded, "Maybe you got whacked harder than I thought…"

"Oh, ha, ha." Ryozha snarked. "No, I mean I don't know what I said that pissed him off."

"Well, go back over what you said, whether you think it pissed him off or not."

"Uh… okay, well… I asked him why a Kurata warrior was working for the mafia… and I think I wondered why he wasn't getting in trouble with the rest of his clan. Oh, and I asked him again why he was working for the mafia, then I asked if he knew of any Kurata artifacts I could take to a museum… that's it, I think."

Leorio blew out a long, low whistle. "Kid, you couldn't have said more wrong things if you'd **tried**. That's just about every one of Kurapika's buttons, except maybe trying to hurt his friends. You see…" he started, then stopped when Senritsu tapped him on the shoulder with her flute.

"It's not your story to tell." she said quietly, and Leorio's shoulders sagged.

"You're probably right…" he said, "but…"

"Do you have **any** idea how annoying this is?" Ryozha demanded, cutting through whatever Leorio was going to say next.

"Probably about as annoying as constantly being interrupted…" Leorio grumbled, but was ignored.

"Everybody keeps saying that Kurapika is special, or something happened to him, or some such stupid thing, but nobody will ever tell me what it is! I don't want to make him mad on purpose, but I'm _tired_ of having to tiptoe around every single bloody subject because I don't know what happened or why he's so mad all the time!" Ryozha exploded.

Senritsu gave him an appraising look. "I heard most of what you said to him… and… I'm sorry… but it really was incredibly stupid. I guess you couldn't know, though. Of course, I heard what **he** said to **you**, as well… you have all the hints you need to figure it out, if you're even a fraction as good as you think you are."

Ryozha stared blankly at Senritsu for a moment as she shoved Leorio bodily out of the room, then his gaze hardened as he managed to process what she had just said.

When Senritsu just returned his gaze placidly, he eventually muttered "You're serious."

She simply nodded, stepping into the room to retrieve his laptop and hand it to him. "Leorio was saying you needed something to occupy your mind, anyways- you shouldn't move around too much yet, but your head should be clear enough to do some thinking."

"But take it easy!" Leorio yelled through the door.

Ryozha and Senritsu exchanged a set of quick, lopsided grins, and she eased out the door.

"Shoulda just opened it quickly and knocked him onto his butt!" Ryozha called after her, and was rewarded by a quickly stifled giggle and an outraged "HEY!"

Then he propped his laptop open, staring it as it flickered through the booting screen. "All the hints I need, huh..?" he mused.

------

Six hours later, Leorio was slumped against the wall with his hands pressed to his ears when Thorny Rose barged in. "Right, that's the eighth customer that wanted to know who I was machinegunning to death in the backroom. Can't you get the brat to stop?"

Leorio wearily shook his head. "I don't think he can even hear me at this point. You can't even **see** his fingers!"

Rose snorted. "Your little friend with the flute had the right idea, she's long gone. Sheeze, this is like listening to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre part of that movie on a loop again."

The premed Hunter looked at her warily. "Again?"

Rose blinked, and actually started to blush. "Yeah... Light was a big fan of it, for some weird reason. He thought it was really exciting." she said offhandedly.

A blank stare, then Leorio cringed. "That was way, way, _way_ too much information." he groaned.

"Hey, you asked. Where's blondie?" Rose said, unsubtly changing the subject.

"No idea. He was pretty angry when he left... I think Senritsu went to find him."

------

Perched on a rooftop overlooking the fog-shrouded Landinium streets, Kurapika glared out over the city, eyes glittering red in the dim light of the halo-ed streetlamps.

"You're getting far too good at finding me." he said coldly.

Senritsu eased out of the shadows behind him. "It's not hard when I know your heartbeat so well." she answered calmly. "You haven't found them yet, have you?"

"Am I really so transparent?"

"The rhythym of your heartbeat is one of anger and confusion; it's not hard to know why. Ryozha was insensitive and a little stupid, and the anger you were already feeling at knowing the Ryodan are here in town got all mixed up with that."

Kurapika turned just enough to glare at his small partner-in-crime. "You have no right..." he started heatedly, then put his forehead in his hand and sighed. "Now isn't a good time." he said after a minute.

"It never is." Senritsu observed. The two fell silent, staring out over the silent streets.

------

Ryozha woke up feeling very odd... even more lightheaded than had been usual for the last few days. He glanced around, then shuddered a little. He had forgotten to slide on his Zetsu-armband before falling asleep, so intent had he been on tracking tiny scraps of data across the aether.

After a moment or two of trying to pin down the elusive feeling of 'wrong', he blew out an annoyed breath, and twitched a little when he realized he could _see_ it. His aura was writhing around him like a live thing, gold streaked lightly with red. Frowning, he rolled out of bed and grabbed his clothes, dragging them on as he slid out the door, hoping to avoid chastisement from Leorio.

This, as it turned out, would probably not be a problem. Leorio was passed out on the floor from heat exhaustion, the hallway so hot that the edges of the magazines littering the floor were curling and brown. The heat didn't last as Ryozha's aura thirstily drank in the molecular motion, the hallway chilling rapidly. Ryozha reached out in alarm for Leorio, then shrank back as the chill intensified, the premed Hunter's lips turning blue and his teeth beginning to chatter, his hand shaking enough to drop the celphone he still clutched.

Backing away rapidly, the Speed Hunter glanced around, trying to figure out what was going on. There hadn't been any open flames he could see, and the floorboards were… not exactly cool, but they lacked the blazing heat of something concealing an open inferno, merely radiating heat like pavement after a hot day. He stood up, then leaned on the wall, the motion too fast for his still-recovering sense of balance, the fact that his kinetic batter hadn't drained the floor into chilly emptiness driven out of his head by the spinning room.

Once he had steadied himself, he closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating hard. His Nen stabilized a little, coming a bit more under his conscious control, and he opened his eyes, the sharp glow of Gyo illuminating his surroundings.

Pale orange Nen-light infused the walls, every surface glowing gently as they pumped heat into the atmosphere. A brief frown, and Ryozha slipped back into the scrubby little back room that was, for the moment, 'his'. He came back out carrying his anik-cored jointed staff, swinging it loosely in one hand, and prowled out through the building like a hung-over panther.

-----

Kurapika sat listlessly on a ledge above the Eastward face of the Great Westlavra Clock, the Westlavra Palace itself stretching out behind him in an orgy of gothic architecture. Neither snappish words nor sullen glares had been enough to drive Senritsu off, and, given that one of the reasons for his initial tolerance for the little Music Hunter had been her ability to keep up with him, he hadn't been able to simply ditch her instead.

Some small part of him was considering mean-spiritedly waiting until the huge clock chimed the hour and escaping while Senritsu was disoriented and partially deafened- the massive bells on the tower were loud enough to be heard for nearly fifty miles around- when his phone buzzed.

Irritated, he pulled it out and snapped "Yes?"

Dead silence greeted him, aside from the faint sound of laboured breathing. Frowning, he looked at the face of his cel, to discover that the call originated from Leorio's phone, then the call dissolved in a wash of static.

"We should get back." Senritsu said from behind him. "I think Leorio was trying to say 'hot', although I'm not sure... but the parlour seems to be under attack."

Kurapika looked at her wordlessly for a second, then nodded, leaping down from the giant clocktower and bounding off through the rooftops of the palace.

-----

Ryozha had found the scruffy little tattoo parlour to be empty, save for Rose' unconscious body, and the unresponsive form of a goon whose name he didn't know- he had had some vague awareness of the man as a figure moving about the shop on errands of dubious import, but beyond that, no clue. And through it all, the pale orange Nen-light glowed with dim malevolence.

He huffed an annoyed breath and set to work dragging the other three occupants of Rose' shop outside, moving as quickly as he dared. In the few minutes this took, the temperature in his half-frozen room had risen to the roasting point, although his thirsty Kinetic Battery quickly took care of that.

Once Leorio, Rose, and the goon had been deposited outside as safely as he could make them, Ryozha sagged against a tree for a minute, spots dancing in front of his eyes from both the physical exertion and the concentration and force of will it took to keep his currently heat-devouring hatsu from adding hypothermia to their list of problems.

–_Still weaker than I'd like, looks like._- he sighed to himself. –_I recover from injury pretty quick, usually… guess I was either hurt worse than I thought, or I'm just more vulnerable to getting whacked over the head than other stuff… which would make sense, I guess, given how dependent my abilities are on being able to concentrate._-

Ryozha realized that his thoughts were wandering, dragged himself off the tree, and started to stalk around the building, his head throbbing in time with the psychedelic beats of Pink Floyd's 'Flaming'.

-_Bleh… this is both helping and hindering my concentration simultaneously. That's vaguely zen… or at least ironic on some level, but at the moment, it's just annoying._- he thought.

Glancing around, he noticed that he had left the door open. With a frown, he moved over to shut it, fearing that the oxygen inflow could result in open flames. As he got closer, he found that the pale orange Nen really _was_ flickering, and it wasn't simply a trick of his throbbing head. All around the opening, the Nen was shrinking back, shattering and peeling away like old paint as the air inside cooled.

Ryozha watched this for a moment or two, then turned on his heel to stalk around the building, tracing the strongest flow of Nen as it crumbled away. As he rounded the corner, a shadowed figure jerked back from holding his palms flat against the building as the flaking Nen reached him, cursing as some sort of bizarre aura-feedback shocked him.

As he did so, he moved more into the light, and the Speed Hunter frankly _stared_. Whoever this was, he looked like someone had taken a stereotypical 'hard biker', all burly physique, sunglasses, tattoos and long hair and beard... and stuffed him into the loudest Hawaiian shirt ever conceived of by man and a pair of ugly Bermuda shorts. And combat boots.

Said apparition was sucking his fingers and swearing indistinctly, an aura of the same pale orange Nen flickering around him like flames. Ryozha watched him wordlessly for a minute, leaning on his staff.

Then the tourist-biker registered his presence. "So, the brat shows himself!" he exclaimed, whirling to point dramatically.

"What is it with everybody calling me 'brat' lately, anyways?" Ryozha complained, remaining unmoving.

"Hah! Because y'are one, kid." the interloper laughed. "An' you're not getting away from ol' Thybault Vii."

"… Thybault?" Ryozha echoed a bit incredulously.

The putative Thybault glared. "Yeh." He made a winding-up motion, which Ryozha watched tiredly. "So, kid, ever dance with a demon in the misty moonlight?"

As he finished the quip, a fireball lanced out from his fingertips to explode spectacularly around the Speed Hunter. When it cleared, Ryozha hadn't even twitched. If anything, he looked bored.

The tourist-biker stared for a moment, then his brow furrowed as Ryozha muttered "That's it? Stupid movie quotes you can't even get right and mediocre fireball-tossing? Feh. I'm going back to bed."

And with that, he turned and stalked off. Inwardly, though, he was thinking hard.

-_Lesse... from the kinetic jolt from that fireball, he wasn't trying to go full-on lethal; I'd have been slightly cooked, and it would've sucked if I'd been inhaling at that point, but it prolly wouldn't have killed me. Different bunch from arm-boy, then?_-

His train of thought derailed slightly and he grabbed at his headphones as the wailing guitars of 'Through Fire and Flames' started revving up.

-_Ow. Dragonforce not good for headaches.­_- he managed, wincing. -_Good for speed, though. Three... Two... One..._-

Then he whirled, uncoiling like a home run hitter shooting for the midfield stands in a Major League Baseball game, to clout the lunging Thybault upside the head with a hundred and twenty pounds of joint-locked, metal-cored staff.

The fire-wielder bounced once, landing on his feet with surprising agility for so stocky a man, and spat to the side.

"Not bad, brat." he said, one eye already starting to swell shut.

Thybault tossed another fireball. Ryozha simply stood there once more, looking vaguely disaffected. When the fire cleared this time, the Speed Hunter calmly swayed around the punch that Thybault threw after having used his fireball as cover to close in.

Unfortunately for Ryozha, the punch had been a feint, and he found himself in a heap three feet away, wheezing for breath. Grinding his teeth, he scissored his legs, whipping his staff around in a whistling arc to try and take the fireball hurler's feet out from under him. Thybault anticipated it and hopped just enough to get clear... only to have the abruptly-unlocked jointed staff flick an end upwards just enough to land a smashing hit across his ankles, landing him sprawling.

The blow to the fireball-hurler's legs was enough to slow his getting up, and Ryozha had enough time to recover a little, sucking in air as he fought to stabilize his breathing. By the time he had steadied a little, Thybault was up and circling, a little more warily. Ryozha shook his head gingerly, then, with a brief twitch of his whole body that cycled kinetic energy into the dial on his player, accelerated.

A blurred instant, and the Speed Hunter was past his opponent, who was looking the wrong direction in befuddled astonishment, and, a half-beat later, in pain, as the knee to the jaw Ryozha had administered on the way by registered. The touristic biker whirled, flame spraying from his fingertips, but Ryozha had already started moving again, another hard, straight line.

This pass left Thybault doubled over and clutching his head from the combination kick-to-the-stomach and staff-to-the-head that Ryozha had picked this time 'round. The fire-wielder braced himself for another hit, then blinked a bit as he realized it hadn't come before he could straighten up.

The Speed Hunter was leaning heavily on one wall, panting. –_Not good. I'm in no shape for a long fight, and this guy's too tough for me to drop quickly._- A brief frown. –_And all this open flame and hot pavement really aren't helping things… the air currents are too scrambled for me to pick up anything reliably with my motion sense. And of __**course**__, I completely suck at en._­-

Thybault moved in carefully, wary of another sucker-punch and launching periodic fireballs. Ryozha did, in fact, lash out, but misjudged the distance and missed entirely. Realizing with a spurt of panic that he had let his enemy close in too tightly, the Speed Hunter launched himself forwards once more, a screaming blur leaving a wake of tortured air, his control faltering to the point that he wasn't even able to properly contain his own shockwaves.

Buffeted by the screaming winds, Thybault nevertheless made a picture-perfect judgement, a knee-height sweep taking Ryozha out of his rush and sending him tumbling across the narrow courtyard.

The Speed Hunter rolled limply to a halt, barely managing to absorb his own momentum before he snapped his own neck. His anik-cored _sansetsukon_ was still clutched in his hands, and he whirled it in front of himself to try and stave off any attempts by Thybault to close while he scrabbled to his feet.

When the fireball-hurler closed from the left instead, Ryozha lunged, a frantic streak across the courtyard… only to slam himself into an unforgiving stone wall as he misjudged the distance in a haze of pain and nausea. His jointed staff tumbled from numb fingers, and his only shocked thought was –_One more inch, and I would have shattered every bone in my arm!_-

Then Thybault was there, hoisting the Speed Hunter by the front of his zippered hoodie. "Sorry kid. Demon wins."

Ryozha writhed, but his kicks were casually deflected and his kinetic battery still too drained to be of any use, having had no way to recharge it after his fight with the Nen-armed assassin, Sadaso.

His twists got steadily feebler as his internal temperature rose, a feverish flush appearing on his cheeks as Thybault's Nen ability slowly roasted him from the inside out. Ryozha's Kinetic Battery could blunt some of the effects, greedily swallowing up the heat generated, but the original Nen-fires could not be absorbed.

"You're not bad, kid." the touristic biker commented offhandedly, apparently oblivious to the fact that the target of his comments was sliding into unconsciousness. "But you rely way too much on that funky hatsu of y_erk..!_"

Whatever the rest of that thought was was destined to remain forever unrevealed, as a loop of chain descended out of the smoggy night and wrapped around his neck, jerking him off his feet and into an unyielding fist.

Kurapika dumped the attacker aside like a sack of garbage and hoisted Ryozha roughly off the ground, hesitating and arranging him to be carried a little more gently as he realized what Leorio would probably say if the Kurata's carelessness aggravated Ryozha's injuries.

A murmur of protest from the younger Hunter, then a shocked gasp. Kurapika turned just in time to see Thybault vanishing upwards into the mist, clutched in a huge claw of Nen.

Ryozha tried to say something, but mercifully passed out before he could do much more than mumble. Kurapika shrugged and hauled the younger boy inside.

------

The past few days had been busy for John 'Cutter' Graves. For one, he'd managed to cow one of his gangmembers into finding him a more comfortable throne.

From atop his frankly magnificent agglomeration of gold and plush, the ganglord looked out over his domain. The junk that had clogged the warehouse was still present, in some forms… but now, it was carefully arranged for clear firing lanes, chokepoints, and barricades. The interior walls glistened with military-grade armour plate, turning the unprepossessing warehouse into a hardened bunker, weapon ports ready to slide open at any given moment, commanding a field of fire that encompassed every angle around the building... including the roof. 'Cutter' wasn't about to dismiss the Special Air Service, after all. Nobody sane in Landinium did.

Overall, though, this was a good day. One of his boys... Jackie the Rat, actually -_That one's turning out to be a valuable intelligence asset. Who knew?_- passed through his mind briefly... had managed to track down Ripper Jack's surviving Boys. Somewhat to his surprise, they had agreed to a meet.

The talker for the Boys had introduced himself as Harry the Mouth. "Simple deal, guv... you beat Shy Tim here..." a wave of his hand at a gangly youth standing quietly behind him, while John Graves, holding his mace loosely in both hands, briefly thought -_All these nicknames are becoming tiresome..._- "an' you're the new Ripper Jack. You lose, he's th'new Rippah, and we're shut of you."

John Graves stood up, shouldered his mace, and gave 'Shy Tim' a small, humourless smile. Given that this smile was coming from a man holding what was clearly a metal-sheathed armbone with a half-molten glob of metal, complete with fingertip 'spikes' jutting out of it on the end, the effect was considerably less than he anticipated.

Shy Tim just nodded slightly and pulled out a balaclava, tying it around his face as a mask. Then he pulled out a heavy, high-tech gauntlet with blades jutting out of it and slid it on. A flex of the fingers, and the gauntlet roared with electricity for a moment, bright lightning arcing out to ground on the concrete floor of the warehouse-base before it stabilized into the occasional ominous crackle.

-_Hmm. No aura. Small wonder he's called Shy Tim; either he's a naturally gifted stalker, or…_- John Graves thought.

On cue, Shy Tim's aura blazed to life.

-_I suppose it was too much to hope for that I wouldn't run afoul of any other Nen-wielders…_- Graves started to think, then blinked as a wash of raw hatred tried to surge up his arm at the thought of an aura he recalled only dimly from his night of destroying members of the Nostrad famiglia.

Graves suppressed it sternly, focussing in on the matter at hand. –_Smooth flow, fairly good control… he's either had some teaching, or is one of those rare 'naturals'._- came the thought. Graves didn't question where it came from, merely releasing his own aura.

The two stepped into a clear area of the warehouse as the two gangs, governed by whatever universal instinct oversees such matters, formed a loose 'fighting ring' around the two men. The Devil Hooligans were behaving appropriately to their name, hooting and hollering and pumping their fists in the air, but the Boys were strangely quiet. Apparently the choosing of a new Ripper Jack was a serious thing.

Graves noticed none of this, except peripherally. He was thinking carefully.

-_If this one can be turned, he would be of excellent use to me; Ripper Jack's Boys value fighting strength above everything. If I prove myself decisively stronger, Timothy here will most likely follow without question._-

The mace came up to block a swing from the bladed gauntlet, and Graves grunted slightly as electricity sought to earth itself through his body.

-_I could likely kill him in a matter of seconds, or simply maim him, but rendering him unable to fight for a long period would mean that I could not employ him in the coming battles._-

The gauntlet swung again, dazzling arcs of electricity reaching hungrily for Shy Tim's opponent, and Graves parried it calmly, wielding the super-dense mace with the kind of casual deftness you'd expect more from a master fencer than from someone wielding a heavy bludgeoning weapon.

Then he was on one knee, trying to figure out what just happened over the searing pain in his gut. Shy Tim's aura told the story, a truly impressive amount gathered around his _left_ fist, the one that was gauntlet-free.

-_So, the boy can think tactically as well._- Graves thought as he slid forwards under another gauntlest-strike that knocked chunks out of the concrete floor, diving between Shy Tim's legs to flick the mace at the small of Tim's back.

-_Difficult to get used to this style of Nen-fighting; I (I?..) was trained in a style that focussed almost all Nen on one's weapon, to maximize striking power, moving aura to block only as needed, rather than the apparently more conventional method of keeping one's Nen constant over most of the body, to be shifted as needed. It's difficult for me to bring up the needed aura for defense without instinctively bringing that around my mace to lethal levels. Hmm..._-

Tim lunged forwards as Graves went under him, dissipating most of the force of the casual-seeming flick of the mace and absorbing the rest with his Ren and a grunt as he did a forward handspring, spinning in midair to land facing Graves. Then he lunged forwards, blades trailing a blazing arc of electric fire.

Another casual dodge- both fighters were swaying arhythmically, intricate footwork making the battle look more like a dance as each sought an opening. Then Graves broke away, clearing some distance between them. Tim tried to close, and Graves gave a ryu-enhanced stomp on the floor angled towards Shy Tim, a radial blast of dust and concrete bits that had the 'audience' members on that side of the impromptu ring shouting in protest and pain.

Tim ducked his head slightly to avoid the worst of the blast, and Graves chose that moment to strike. The gauntlet was up, blocking, which Graves had counted on as he brought his mace around in a smashing swing, snapping the two topmost long blades off. Somewhat to his surprise, Tim didn't even blink, merely adjusting his stance slightly for a short jab that managed a shallow cut along Graves' forearm.

-_Not bad. However, his reach has been diminished somewhat._-

Shy Tim circled, his guard closed and his eyes narrowed. As far as Graves could tell from reading body language, the boy (-_Boy? He can't be much more than six or seven years younger than __**me**__!_- flashed through 'Cutter's' mind) was aware that he was outmatched, although uncertain by how much.

There was another inconclusive exchange of blows, one of the protruding fingertip-spikes tearing a brief line of blood across Tim's cheekbone as Graves stabbed it forwards in an bizarre lunge, which the mace seemed rather less than suited for. There were murmurs from around the circle, several of the more melee-oriented Boys trying to figure out Graves' style, which, while true to proper cudgel-wielding for the most part, incorporated moves which a mace should be theoretically incapable of, or at least useless at doing. Somehow, though, he remained dangerous throughout.

Then Shy Tim broke away in turn, sighed, and touched a control on his rather thick, metallic belt. Abruptly, the gauntlet glowed brilliantly with power, electricity in a constant cascade off the fist of the gauntlet like a very, very localized lightning storm.

-_If that's battery-powered, as the belt control seems to indicate, he's only got a few minutes of this. It opens up an opportunity for myself, though._-

Shy Tim leapt, trailing a lethal curtain of electricity. Graves stepped_ into_ the lunge, catching the blazing gauntlet with the handle of his mace and shoving hard, growling as he was shocked, but continuing to push.

Tim went down, pushed off-balance by Graves' aggressive 'block', and tried to slap out in a standard breakfall... but Graves kept on him, maintaining a powerful shove against Tim's arm all the way down, pinning it inwards. Shy Tim strained, but Graves had leverage and weight on him, and the gauntlet-wielder found himself hoist by his own petard as his electrified gauntlet was forced against his own chest.

Shy Tim convulsed a few times, then went still as Graves released pressure against his arm, a final twitch splaying him out spread-eagled. Graves rested the head of his mace lightly against the hollow of Tim's throat on the off-chance that he was shamming, and glanced around at the massed gangs.

"Anyone else want to give this a try?" he questioned.

A few murmurs... most of them about him not even being out of breath, in all honesty... went up, but no-one stepped forwards.

Harry the Mouth pushed his way free of the crowd once more and shook his head. "Not th'way it works, guv. Our lad Tim here was the next claimant f'r Rippah. Means he beat th'lot o' us at one point or another; you beat him, yer th'new Ripper Jack, an' no-one else gets a go. 'Tis genuine that simple." He paused. "So, word is tha' y'ere th'lad to talk to for finding a good scrum. You're th'Rippah, get y'self to thinkin' about a bloody fight."

John Graves walked forwards slowly, hands clasped behind his back and tapping himself lightly on the back of the neck with his mace-head in a pensive fashion. The 'fighting ring' cleared nervously out of his way as he strode calmly up the short dais to park himself on his throne.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. "Rippers? How'd you like a go at the Number-men?"

------

The mist curled lazily, lent an eldricht glow by the moonlight, as Jackie the Rat disappeared into it. Andrej, Zenji's high-fashion enforcer, watched him go, his lip curling slightly.

"He's nearly as dishevelled as you, Zeechik." the fashion-plate said. "Although he seems to carry less vermin."

Andrej's bug-wielding partner faded into view.

"I don't like that one." he said. "He's playing too many sides. If he gets caught..."

Zeechik let the sentence trail off, and Andrej pointedly ignored him, producing a mobile phone.

"It's time for us to check in, anyways." he said.

Zeechik nodded and produced a similar phone.

"What's taken you idiots so long?" Zenji's voice roared from the other end the instant the connection was established.

"This is the same time we always check in." Zeechik said neutrally. Andrej merely sniffed.

"So, you have the information?" Zenji demanded. At an affirmative from his men, he smiled wickedly. "Good. I want Nostrad's men **crushed**, you hear me? If we can break his power in Landinium, he loses the whole of Grabradagne. And without Grabradagne, he'll lose his foothold on the continent entirely. The only port of importance that he has assets in otherwise is in Nordslaand, and getting to the rest of the continent from there would require passage through Bederusse. And Bederusse is _my_ territory."

He paused, and his two enforcers made affirmative sorts of noises into their phones. "Get rid of those piddling local gangs first. I don't care if the streets run red with blood and the city is levelled, nobody who isn't part of my group has license to operate in that city. No-one, you understand me? NO ONE!"

Another pause, this one punctuated by heavy breathing. "I'm smuggling men and arms into the city over the course of the next few weeks. Based on what we know about Nostrad's operations there, Landinium doesn't have enough men loyal to him to withstand a tenth of what I'm sending you. You two, I want murdering every gang member you can find... and track down that blonde girl who held a knife to my throat. She's there; I want her head."

A final affirmative murmur, and Zenji broke connection abruptly. The two mafiosi exchanged glances.

"It would appear that it is time to go do some murder." Andrej commented.

The two faded into the night, ready to begin their gruesome work.


End file.
